Inside The Blender — Innocent Drinks' factory of the future
'Spot takes measurements like temperature and vibration and has an on-board camera,' said John McGowan, head of supply chain at Innocent. 'If there is a non-standard event, he communicates back.' The small robot, about the size of a terrier, 'replaces the human in many ways', he added.
Innocent, which opened a factory called The Blender in Rotterdam in 2021, aims to lead the way in both automation and sustainability. It champions green targets as good business sense and believes that other companies will follow its lead.
Its eco-friendly factory in Rotterdam may hold lessons for the wider food industry, which was the focus of a new UK government strategy published last week designed to improve access to healthy food. Ministers also want to develop 'more environmentally sustainable production methods' in the sector, which employs 4.2 million people in the UK.
Innocent Drinks was founded in Cambridge in 1998 and bought out by Coca-Cola in 2013, giving it the financial firepower for projects such as The Blender. While at least five other factories are cutting back or moving out of Rotterdam this year, citing high energy costs and new pollution limits, Innocent is ploughing ahead with a strategy to become carbon neutral by 2028. What this means, McGowan said, is building two new wind turbines and expanding its solar farm to meet its growing energy needs.
The Netherlands is one of Europe's most enthusiastic adopters of solar power and, no surprise given its historical association with windmills, has welcomed wind turbines. But with this switch to renewables comes a problem that Britain also faces: the Dutch grid is struggling to accommodate peaks of electricity when the wind blows and the sun shines, and some companies have to wait up to ten years for a connection.
'Electricity is a challenge, no doubt,' McGowan said. 'The infrastructure [too], which is unusual, given the developed nature of the Dutch economy. However, it is forcing people to be creative and to be more sustainable in their outlook. Many manufacturing sites today are trying to retro-design: this plant was built, state-of-the-art, as an electrical plant … We're at the cutting edge.'
In a £200 million and counting factory where the storage silo holds 250,000 litres of juice ready for blending, being at the cutting edge seems important. But during a good hour of walking around, I did not see a single blade. In fact, you would not even know it was a food factory until the packing room, where little bottles whizz around and the odd reject lands in a bucket.
There are apparently more machines than human beings, just 280, and those we see have hair nets and beard guards, well-scrubbed hands and no false nails. Sweden is being served today and instead of British bottles of Innocent's juice-based drinks with labels such as 'strawberries, bananas and apples', we watch 'Apelsinjuice med fruktkott' whipping along, off to the fully automated cold warehouse.
The factory has already won Breeam (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) sustainability certification and is aiming to go further, both for ethical reasons and business resilience.
'We're on a journey to complete carbon neutral, so we're making more investments in wind turbines,' McGowan said. 'Hopefully we'll be fully net neutral by at the latest 2028 … completely off the grid. And that's a sustainability goal as much as it is a business goal because we don't want to be in a situation where we're dependent on a government or an infrastructure.'
The site needs to run 24/7, he added: 'It's critical to the network, so it cannot come down. If this comes down, we lose millions in business, daily … Business continuity is essential.'
The Blender uses water-saving technology to clean pipes with air, and employs a complex system of electric heat pumps.
Maeve Lynch, site director, said: 'Electric pumps in themselves are not new technology, but for this application for manufacturing and at this level of temperature and pressure to generate the steam and the pressure that is required to keep the system running, it's quite a challenge. They have failed a number of times and we're probably on our third version now.'
Many of the juices come in cold so they need to be defrosted and then made sterile, meaning some parts of the factory are hot and steamy. Some of the heat pumps in the ammonia plant, Robert van der Linden, an engineer said, heat juices to 65 or 90 degrees for the pasteurisation process.
As with all of its technology, Innocent works with a partner: in this case, GEA, based in Dusseldorf, a major provider for the drinks industry, which supplied the tech for what it calls 'the world's first carbon-neutral juice factory'.
Despite a continuing expansion project, the site is remarkably clean. And there is huge attention to detail: the brooms and other cleaning equipment are colour-coded so that nobody can walk away with a different department's litter picker.
The factory is in a beautiful location, looking out to sea, on a 60-hectare business park dubbed the Rotterdam food hub. From here, Innocent serves the 18 countries where it sells its products. It's perfectly located for ingredient shipments: orange juice comes in from Brazil, mangoes from India and strawberries from Spain.
The fruit arrives ready pressed — orange juice, apple juice and banana pulp, for instance — to be blended according to the factory recipe. Incoming lorries are sustainable too, McGowan said, pointing out a 50-tonne electric lorry discharging its load after a 42-minute trip from the supplier.
'This whole area is here marked to be a food hub, and we have the ships coming in,' he says. 'So they basically come in from Brazil, and they deposit in very large tankers in a juice facility just at the port. And then we transport by electric truck out here.'
Unlike other port companies, Innocent says that it has not had issues with cocaine packed in among bananas — probably harder to do in a vat of juice — and they also do not receive pallets directly.
'The only issue we have, quite frankly and openly, is from time to time, particularly in the UK, we would have migrants on the shipment going into our warehouse, in Tilbury, Essex,' McGowan said. If stowaways get into the cargo, the whole shipment has to be destroyed, he said, to reduce the risk of contamination. 'We can't take the chance and we can't test for everything.'
Outside the factory, geese, other birds and wildlife cluster, including a sad-looking seagull sheltering against the outside of a loading bay. 'We've managed to find the right balance between protecting their site versus us,' Lynch said.
McGowan agreed: 'We look at the natural environment here. It just makes sense to go solar and in the country of windmills [to have] wind turbines.'
Clean power, robot dogs and giant heat pumps: other food producers may go green with envy.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
19 minutes ago
- BBC News
Rise in number of Guernsey minimum wage complaints
A government agency has seen a rise in the number of complaints related to the minimum wage. Director of the Employment and Equal Opportunities Services Ian Gavet said he had been presented nine cases since he began his role in said his predecessors had dealt with just one case in 2023 and one more in the nine cases in 2025 to date, Mr Gavet said three had been dismissed as the minimum wage had been paid and three enforcement notices had been sent to employers because the minimum wage had not been paid. One case had been dismissed because the employer could not be found, one case had been referred for consideration of prosecution and one case was actively being investigated, he said. Mr Gavet said the Employment and Equal Opportunities Service helped employers, employees and trade unions to understand local employment and discrimination minimum wage in Guernsey will increase to £12.60 an hour for adults on 1 October rate for workers aged 17 and 18 will also rise, from £10.80 to £11.35.
Times
an hour ago
- Times
The expensive reality of owning a château — and how to buy one
With multiple turrets, 55 rooms and a medieval moat, Château de Bourneau in western France is straight out of a fairytale. However, for Erin Choa, the British woman who bought the château with her French husband, Jean-Baptiste, in 2018, there have been many less-than-romantic moments. 'I certainly didn't feel like a glamorous chatelaine when I was covered in soot helping to fit a 16m flue for a wood-burner — our only source of heating,' Choa says. 'Or the time I threw a dinner party and was wearing wellingtons under my evening dress, because an hour before we'd been tackling a flood in the kitchen.' You can see why people are seduced by the idea of owning a château. Just a few minutes browsing online and you'll soon be wondering if you could turn that down-at-heel €500,000 (about £430,000) pile into the home of your dreams or a boutique hotel. Especially if you're living in a cramped London flat that would sell for more. But what's the reality behind the dream? Let's start with that 'bargain' asking price. For a €500,000 château, you'd need to budget for notary fees and taxes on top (about €31,000). And don't forget to check if the buyer or seller is paying the agency fees. They're considerably higher than in the UK — averaging about 5 per cent — so that's potentially another €25,000 to pay. This is before you factor in the costs of a cross-border solicitor — not compulsory but advisable for such a significant investment. Legal fees can easily reach £10,000. If you need a mortgage, take heed too. 'Few French banks are willing to lend for the purchase of a château,' says Fiona Watts of the mortgage broker International Private Finance. 'It's such an unusual building that if they had to repossess it, it's not liquid enough for them to sell easily.' Structural surveys are not commonplace in France but, if you were planning to buy a historic home for a six-figure sum or more, would you want to go ahead without one? Typical fees start at about £3,000, depending on the size, age and complexity of the estate. 'Châteaux with multiple independent buildings will naturally cost more,' says Matthew Noble of MKN Surveyors. • Read more expert advice on property, interiors and home improvement In general, the cheaper the château, the more expensive the upgrade project. Renovation work in France is estimated at €1,700-€2,000 per sq m, but protected features, specialist materials and tradesperson skills can push that to €3,500 per sq m. 'On a normal house you might pay €35,000-€50,000 to replace a roof, but for a château it could be €200,000 due to the size,' says Tom Easdown an architect for French Plans, a firm that helps English speakers to navigate the French planning system. In fact, that's exactly the price Jon and Carmen Parker are expecting to pay next year to replace the roof at their home, Château de Cézérac in Lot-et-Garonne, southwest France. 'Don't just look at the attractive purchase price but what it's going to cost you to renovate,' Jon says. 'Bank on doubling both the money and time you'd expect.' Note too, that the cost of building materials in France has gone up in recent years. Brits over there have long been shocked at the price of paint, for example — and you'll need thousands of litres to coat a château. 'We have seen beautiful 12-bedroom-plus châteaux for €300,000, but the amount you would have to inject to get them liveable and functioning for a business could be millions,' Choa says. 'Expect to pay €100,000-plus for re-roofing, €80,000-plus for new heating systems — and consider the costs of rewiring and plumbing. Finding a project with renovation potential that wasn't a total wreck but within our budget was tricky. We love DIY but are aware of our limitations.' Often, the only way châteaux are affordable is to do much of the work yourself. 'You need stamina, the days are long and you'll end up spending a lot of money,' Jon Parker says. 'But we wouldn't change the experience for anything.' • How British gîte owners are changing tactics as the cost of living bites Once you've completed the renovation — that's if you ever do; many châteaux have unfinished rooms left for future projects — you'll need to budget for maintenance and running costs. The price of a boiler powerful enough to heat a vast château is something to bear in mind, and that's before you pay the heating bills. 'The favourite topic of conversation between château owners is the heating system,' Choa says. 'When we invest in this, it will easily be our biggest expenditure.' The same goes for Roland Salvato, the owner of Château de Balsac in Aveyron, southern France. 'Our largest annual expense is heating,' he says. 'Even with some insulation, costs have gone through the roof, literally. We pay more than €12,000 a year for energy, €3,000 for home insurance and €5,000 for basic maintenance and upkeep. Our largest renovation expenditure was creating two B&B rooms and bathrooms, at a cost of about €45,000. 'You'll probably need to reinvest into the property at least 5 per cent of its total value every year to maintain it — and 10 per cent for repairs and minor upgrades,' he adds. As well as maintenance for the château itself, you should also consider the costs involved in running a large estate. 'You may have to invest in tractors or lawnmowers, which can be over €10,000,' Choa says. 'Our outgoings are easily €4,000-€6,000 a month and that doesn't include any renovation costs. But our château is 1,000 sq m and we have four large cottages that sleep 44, and 32 acres of land.' When things go wrong, they tend to go wrong on a huge scale. 'If a window breaks, we need to replace a 6ft pane of glass, and when you have over 100 windows in just the château alone, it's easy to see how one stormy night can leave you quaking,' Choa says. The larger and more valuable the property, the higher the annual property taxes too — and the cost of home insurance can come as a shock too. 'At one point, we were quoted €8,000 a year,' says Rory Thersby, who owns Château de Pican in Gers, southern France, with his wife, Jane. 'Local insurers told us they couldn't insure a property of this size because it was beyond the parameters they were happy to work within. It was an anxious process trying to find an affordable quote,' Rory says. 'Both our property and car insurance are twice what we were paying in the UK,' Jane adds. • How to renovate in France, by the stars of Château DIY Plus, note that any changes to the exterior of a French property — whether a humble cottage or grand château — will require planning permission. Even down to the colour of the shutters. Work on a historic home is likely to need the involvement of the Architectes des Bâtiments, the French equivalent of the National Trust. Then there's all the paperwork — tackling French bureaucracy is notoriously tricky. 'French red tape is like a hydra,' Jane Thersby says. 'You chop off one head and more grow in its place, with more and more documents being required, each of which requires multiple pieces of evidence to be produced, involving multiple authorities. That said, our village mayor has been helpful and is sympathetic when it comes to these bureaucratic burdens.' Few châteaux are bought as private homes, with commercial ventures ranging from B&Bs to huge events businesses. While this brings in much-needed income, it also adds extra costs, from fire and safety installations to staffing. 'We were surprised at how difficult and expensive it is to employ staff for a small business in France, which is why we end up doing everything ourselves, which limits our expansion,' Choa says. If none of this has put you off, France offers a great choice of locations and châteaux. Almost a thousand are listed for sale on the website Belles Demeures alone, ranging from €142,000 (just the three bedrooms) to €100 million-plus. These included formidable fortifications, Renaissance palaces, spacious country homes and wine estates. Smaller, more manageable châteaux are popular, mostly because they're easier and cheaper to run. Clearly the costs and work involved with owning a château can be immense, but there's an extra element to ownership that often comes as a surprise to a newbie. 'We didn't realise when we bought Château de Bourneau that we would inherit a role as the custodians for this generation,' Choa says. 'We are caretakers of a shared history with our community. We received visits of welcome from local dignitaries, and I have even been introduced as the 'Dame de Bourneau'!' So, is owning a château a dream or a nightmare? It can be both, with extreme highs and lows. 'It's a path fraught with unknowns, head-scratching, gut-wrenching problems and roadblocks,' Rory Thersby says. 'It takes more than a fairy godmother to turn a rundown château into a home fit for a king. But I love knowing that we are becoming a part of this old building's history.' For Choa, waking up and looking across the moat through a turret window still gives her a thrill every morning. 'It's a hard-earned privilege to call Château de Bourneau home and to be her guardians for this generation. The hours are long, the journey isn't always easy and caring for a historic monument is extremely expensive. But there is something so special about being a part of her history and protecting her for future generations to enjoy.' • Attend a formation civique — a mandatory course in how to adjust to French life — early in your residency. Contact the French Office for Immigration and Integration ( to arrange this. • If applying for a visa, or waiting for one to come through, be patient. The process can take several months. Utilise expats' social media support groups, such as Expats Move to France (177,000 members on Facebook) for tips.• You will need your visa to get a social security number, which unlocks a huge variety of state services including your carte vitale, France's health insurance card. If you don't have one, and arrive as a tourist (which allows you to stay for up to 90 days within any 180-day period), you'll need comprehensive travel insurance to cover any eventualities.• Beware France's vicious cycle of bureaucracy: you won't be able to get a bank account without a permanent address … but you won't be able to get a permanent address without a bank account. Many newcomers register themselves temporarily at the French address of a family member or friend to get around this.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Dalman dismisses Cardiff takeover talk as 'fiction'
Cardiff City chairman Mehmet Dalman has dismissed as "fiction" the idea that the club is close to being Wales and Real Madrid forward Gareth Bale has publicly stated that a consortium he is fronting has made offers to buy the Bluebirds, while there have been reports of takeover bids from a South Africa-based admitted there had been informal approaches from potential suitors – only one, unnamed, which they are taking "seriously" – but said club owner Vincent Tan was not interested in chairman also rubbished speculation that he himself was considering buying Cardiff over from Bluebirds were relegated from the Championship last season and begin their League One campaign at home to Peterborough United on Saturday."This has been fascinating work of fiction. Let me be very clear on the record, nobody from a South African consortium came to see me," said Dalman."We have not entertained anybody coming around to look at this club. We have never spoken to the regulators or EFL [English Football League] or anybody."I have never tried to put a consortium together to take over this. I have never showed any interest in taking over this club. I came with Vincent, I will probably go with Vincent."There is an attempt by a number of groups to try to buy this club on the cheap so they're pulling these stories out. We just need to kill them [the stories]. Our focus is to get promoted."I take one seriously. Are we pursuing it? No." This is the first time anyone on Cardiff's board has addressed the takeover talk, which escalated when Bale revealed in June that his consortium had approached the Bluebirds about purchasing his home legendary former Wales captain then said in July the group had made a second offer, while South African businessman Gary Otto was rumoured to be leading a rival acknowledged their interest but questioned how serious that was."I guarantee you that every team that gets relegated gets approaches because there are people that they are looking for value purchases," he said."We always have approaches. Most of them are pathetic. Some of them have substance."Of course, we had approaches, but that's not a bid. You would be shocked how low some of the numbers have been when people have rung up."For me to me to take anybody seriously, I need to know who they are in their entirety. I need to know proof of funds, preferably by a financial institution of some credibility. I need to know who their lawyers are, and I need to know who their accountants are. Until they give me those four things, I don't have an offer."Dalman has previously said that Tan would be open to selling at the right value will have dropped as a result of their relegation last season, and the owner would prefer to sell in the Championship or, ideally, back in the Premier League, where they have spent two seasons during his 15 years in said there was a "cast-iron" offer on the table two seasons ago when Cardiff in the Championship but, even then, Tan was reluctant to sell."I would not want to sell at this level," said Dalman. "I would want to see us in the Championship, which is really where this team should be."We got really close two seasons ago when we were in the Championship and we had a cast-iron offer. And that was the closest we were to selling."The last valuation we did was about £40m. The reason why I think you can ask for a premium is this is a Premier League-quality stadium and a Premier League catchment area."It's maybe £50m if you stretch it. Let's assume a Championship [club] is £100m, do you want to sell it now? In the Premier League it could be £400m."So it's different dynamics, but I think you do not want to sell an asset when it's rock bottom."
