Marshfield Farm Ice Cream is continually striving to minimise its environmental footprint and has always embraced new green energy developments. The latest advancement on the farm is the installation of a 200kw wood pellet boiler which means Marshfield is now entirely carbon neutral for heating and hot water in the ice cream factory.
Owner Will Hawking says “We farm our land organically so self-sufficiency and sustainability are key priorities for us. We are proud of our green credentials and the new wood pellet boiler is just the latest in a series of green measures we’ve introduced in recent years”.
The wood pellet boiler was installed just before Christmas. It is powered by sustainable wood from the New Forest and now heats all the water used in the milking parlour, the ice cream factory and the office. Local company Wood Energy in Bristol supplied the boiler.
A selection of further green initiatives at Marshfield Farm is listed below:
- The farm’s solar panels were installed in September 2011 and provide 20% of all electricity requirements. 220 photovoltaic solar panels sit on the roofs of several of the farm buildings and create 50kw of energy every year. That’s the same amount of electricity 12 homes would use each year.
- A borehole on the farm provides all the water required by the farm and the office.
- A heat recovery system is in operation in the milking parlour. Heat is produced when the farm’s 200 cows produce milk. This is harnessed to help heat up the water which is used to wash down the milking parlour twice a day. This saves 70% of the energy required to heat the water.
- 75% of the ingredients used in Marshfield’s ice creams are from a 50 mile radius. The strawberries in Succulent Strawberry and Strawberries in Clotted Cream Ice Creams are sourced from nearby Vale of Evesham and the brownie pieces in Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream are from local bakery Marshfield Bakery.
- 95% of the food the cows eat is produced on the farm
- Because all Marshfield’s ice creams and sorbets are made on the farm there is literally yards between the cows’ milking parlour and the ice creamery – so a lot of the travel is on foot!
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