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These days everyone seems to be “going green,” and we couldn’t be happier. From small steps to big changes, people are taking action. At Kettle Foods, we’re doing our part to show how business can coexist in harmony with the environment at our new potato chip facility in Beloit, Wisconsin. By making green building choices—from carpet selection to energy use—we’ve earned LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. More important than awards, we’re lowering our environmental impact and making our facility a healthier, happier workplace for employees to continue their commitment to hand crafting the best tasting, all natural potato chips. We call it “seasoning with sustainability.”

We also believe in the importance of protecting the natural environment and we start in our own backyard. In Salem we worked to revitalize the protected wetlands surrounding our Oregon headquarters and we’re now in the process of restoring the prairie around our new facility in Beloit.

To earn LEED® certification (the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings) we had to think differently about our potato chip facility. Here are just a few quick facts about the inner workings of our plant –

• More than 35 percent of our building materials come from within 500 miles of the project site.

• Our countertops are made from 100% recycled paper and are formaldehyde free.

• Unless it’s due to chili peppers, we don’t want our employees, or our chips, getting too hot so we designed our roof to reduce the amount of heat absorbed unnecessarily.

• More than 16 million pounds of carbon dioxide pollution will not enter the atmosphere because 100 percent of our electricity will be offset with the purchase of renewable wind power and through the use of our own wind turbines.

• Employees don’t have to step outside to get a breath of fresh air – specially designed air handling systems circulate filtered fresh air in the building.

• The wind turbines on our roof will generate enough energy to produce 56,000 bags of potato chips each year.