Contessa Premium Foods, Inc.  Los Angeles, CA
Contessa's Green Cuisine plant, will be the first USGBC LEED-certified frozen-food manufacturing facility.  The new plant – a 115,000-square foot, $40-million factory of advanced design and technology intent upon significantly reducing Contessa's environmental impact – will produce up to 150 million pounds of product the first year alone.  In April 2008, California Industrial Development Finance Advisory Commission unanimously approved the issuance of Industrial Development Bond (IDB) financing to Contessa Premium Foods, Inc.  Proceeds of the bonds were used for the purchase of food-processing equipment for Contessa’s facility in the City of Commerce, which is the world’s first environmentally conscious, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified frozen-food manufacturing plant.

The Contessa facility is certified by the United States Green Building Council's (USGBC) LEED New Construction (NC) green-building rating system and achieved the Gold-level certification.  Contessa’s “Green Cuisine Plant” uses advanced design, technology and processes to reduce environmental pollutants and thereby reduces the company’s environmental impact.  Some of these innovative features at the Green Cuisine Plant include:

• a solar-power array that reduces carbon dioxide emissions by more than 730,000 pounds each year, producing an effect similar to conserving nearly 300 acres of pine forest
  
  
• a water preheating system that saves energy by using waste heat from refrigeration compressors to preheat water used for sanitation purposes
  
  
• an innovative loading dock that prevents the loss of refrigerated air, reducing temperature fluctuation – and energy use – in the loading-dock area
  
  
• variable-frequency drives that adjust the amount of power supplied to motors at specific times or under specific conditions to minimize energy use
  
  
• several "first-to-market" innovations, such as a heat-redirection system never before been used in a temperature-controlled manufacturing plant, eliminating the hot gas which normally dissipates into the air.  Contessa's plant captures that gas and redirects it to a water-storage tank, where it preheats the water stored there, minimizing the amount of energy needed to heat water for sanitation
  
  
• many of the building materials contained recycled content
  
  
• nearly 50% of materials were sourced within 500 miles of the site, to support the local economy and reduce the amount of fossil fuel consumed during transportation
  
  
• plant uses methods of shrimp production considered entirely turtle-safe; shrimp is farm-raised and harvested through a process known as aquaculture – the cultivation of aquatic plants and animals – which is an ideal way to augment the world's food supply

"Manufacturing accounts for about 80 percent of industrial energy consumption and energy-related carbon emissions.  And while the food industry is essential for our very survival, it's also the fifth-largest consumer of energy in the manufacturing arena.  Individuals can make a difference in mitigating climate change.  But manufacturers can do more toward achieving that goal in a single hour than 100 well-intentioned people can accomplish in an entire year." *

*excerpted from Corporate Leader Daily http://www.corporateleaderdaily.com/magazine/article/17276.html
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