Kraft Heinz plant in Lowville to use federal grant to cut emissions

LOWVILLE — The Kraft Heinz Company (NASDAQ: KHC) plant in Lowville plans to upgrade, electrify, and decarbonize its heating process to significantly cut carbon-dioxide emissions. It’ll use an estimated $22 million federal grant award to help pay for the effort. The Lowville facility in Lewis County is among 10 Kraft Heinz sites across the country that will use a total of nearly $171 million for similar work, the office of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D–N.Y.) announced on March 25. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Industrial Demonstrations Program is awarding the money, Schumer’s office said. Kraft Heinz Company is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. “At Kraft Heinz, we’re on a journey to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” Pedro Navio, president of North America at Kraft Heinz, said in the Schumer announcement. “This investment from the U.S. Department of Energy will give us critical resources to make cutting-edge technology improvements in our plants, including our facility in Lowville. Not only will these funds help us lower emissions, they will create local jobs, improve training for our current and future workforce, and better the communities we serve. We’d like to thank Senator Schumer for his leadership and support over the years.” Kraft Heinz’s “Delicious Decarbonization Through Integrated Electrification and Energy Storage Project” specifically aims to upgrade, electrify, and decarbonize its process heat at 10 facilities by applying a range of technologies including heat pumps, electric heaters, and electric boilers in combination with sustainable-fuel boilers, solar thermal, solar panels, and thermal-energy storage. Schumer said the funding comes from the Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act. It seeks to help accelerate the North Country plant’s adoption of clean energy to lower greenhouse-gas emissions, while “creating good-paying construction jobs to strengthen the plant boosting the local economy and environment.” “This is a major win for Lewis County and our Upstate NY’s dairy industry. Lowville’s Kraft Heinz plant has long been the cream of the crop and now the Bipartisan Infrastructure & Jobs Law and Inflation Reduction Act will help power their transition to clean energy, making sure the North Country facility will have the modern upgrades it needs to remain the ‘big cheese,’ all while creating good paying jobs and fighting climate change,” Schumer said.  Implementing the technologies at each facility is expected to reduce annual emissions by more than 300,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, translating to a 99 percent reduction from 2022 levels for Kraft Heinz, “all while helping create hundreds of good paying construction jobs.”  The Lowville Kraft Heinz plant will use the funding to replace aging gas and other high carbon-emitting technologies with “more energy efficient and environmentally friendly alternatives,” such as heat pumps, electric heaters, and electric boilers.  In addition to the Lowville plant, Kraft Heinz will also boost its decarbonization efforts in Champaign, Illinois; Columbia, Missouri; Fremont, Ohio; Holland, Michigan; Kendallville, Indiana; New Ulm, Minnesota; Muscatine, Iowa; Mason City, Iowa; and Winchester, Virginia, Schumer’s office said.