Big 8 Beverages, our carbonated soft drink and water processing plant in Stellarton, Nova Scotia, participated in an Eco Efficiency Study conducted by Dalhousie University and Nova Dynamics Limited, an engineering consulting company. The study reviewed the facility's inputs and outputs in order to identify opportunities to reduce material, energy and water consumption. Since the completion of the study, we have implemented the recommendations we believe will have the most meaningful impact on the facility's energy consumption.

Specifically, Big 8 Beverages installed a water exchange system to cool water for the soft drink line and to warm the spring water line by exchanging the water from the two lines. This reduces the energy required to chill the water in the soft drink line and warm the water in the spring water line. A solar hot water heating system was also installed, which uses two solar dishes to capture solar generated heat to supplement the facility's process hot water. These two initiatives combined, are saving approximately 6,300 litres of heating oil per year.