We are mindful of resources

2020: Katjes production is carbon-neutral!

In 2020, we were one of the first companies in this industry to achieve carbon neutrality at all three of our production sites in Germany. We took lots of big and little steps to achieve this goal.

The biggest step we took to reduce our carbon footprint was transitioning to green electricity, which we have now used exclusively since 2015. We also continually strive to optimise our energy consumption – so year by year, we manage to use less energy per tonne of finished goods. We aim to halve our carbon footprint by 2030. Whereby even the little things help: taking the train instead of flying to business meetings, for example.

You don't reduce all carbon emissions overnight. Which is why we support important, certified climate protection projects around the world. In Peru, for example, where we’re helping to preserve the rainforests and plant more cocoa trees. We’re also a member of Germany’s Climate and Development Alliance, and keep pace with the latest developments so that we can continually optimise our energy usage.

The packaging of the future.

Let’s start with the good news. We use 100% recycled materials for our boxes. All our packaging can be recycled. We regularly review the situation to see how we can optimise it. But our packaging does have to meet very exacting standards in order to keep our products fresh, hygienic and full of flavour. At present, we can’t see any alternative to plastic. Unfortunately. We’re not interested in greenwashing, so we scrutinise alternatives to plastic very carefully.

Unfortunately, bioplastics are anything but resource-friendly. They don’t decompose naturally, and they can’t always be recycled. Manufacturing paper packaging would require enormous amounts of energy and water – and even then, we’d still need to coat paper bags with plastic to keep our products fresh. Which defeats the object, in our humble opinion. Instead, we’ve decided that we want to be real packaging pioneers. We want to develop a genuine alternative to plastic. And we’re working on it!

You have a great idea for how we could package our products better? Please submit it to info@katjes.de.

Being mindful of resources means using fewer of them.

We permanently review our production processes and modernise our machines to ensure we use as few raw materials as possible. For example, we’ve installed state-of-the-art cooling units, our own cogeneration plant and thermal insulation, and we’ve optimised our compressed air processes and other processes to cut down our carbon emissions and make sure that, day by day, we use less electricity and water.

Handling resources mindfully also meaning generating as little waste as possible. Eighty per cent of our raw materials is delivered in reusable containers. That means we have virtually no packaging waste in our factories – even though nobody’s looking. And we don’t waste any food. Because if any of our products don’t quite meet our exacting quality standards, we simply sell them as factory seconds.

‘All veggie’ benefits the environment, too.

Intensive livestock farming is accelerating climate change. The carbon footprint for one kilo of vegetables is twenty times lower than for one kilo of pork. And vegetables need considerably less water, too. We’ve noticed a real difference since transitioning our entire production to vegetarian. For example, when we produce our Grün-Ohr-Bärchen (green-eared bears), our harmful emissions (e.g. CO₂ and methane) are around 20% lower than for gummy bears that contain gelatine. And we use 42% less water. So changing our production was a win-win situation all round – for animals and for all of us.

We are mindful of resources.

2020: Katjes production is carbon-neutral!

The packaging of the future.

Being mindful of resources means using fewer of them.

‘All veggie’ benefits the environment, too.