La Lorraine Bakery Group is a leading manufacturer of bakery products with locations throughout Europe. A family-owned company with more than 80 years of experience, innovation and quality are at the heart of their production processes. In their production site in Schoten, near Antwerp, large-scale bread and patisserie is produced daily.
An efficient and safe working environment is crucial here, and lighting plays an important role in this. With our relighting solution, we provided a significant improvement in visibility on the shop floor, which improves safety and ergonomics. In addition, energy consumption was significantly reduced, which not only reduces operational costs, but also contributes to La Lorraine's sustainability goals.
We were addressed by the then Maintenance Manager of La Lorraine, Willem Rongé, with a clear challenge: the existing lighting no longer met the needs of the production site in Schoten. The fixtures were outdated and consumed unnecessary amounts of energy, while no longer fully meeting the HACCP Standards for food processing companies.
In addition, the lighting was incorrectly positioned, which led to shadows and uneven light distribution on the shop floor. This impacted not only visibility, but also employee safety. On top of that, La Lorraine turned in shifts with day, evening and night shifts, which also made lighting zoning a concern. The existing circuitry did not allow different zones to be efficiently controlled separately, resulting in unnecessary energy consumption and a lack of flexibility.
After an initial introductory meeting and site visit, it was decided to hold an extensive study progress starting up. A correct lighting study was essential to optimally match the lighting to the specific working environment. For this, the entire site had to be mapped in detail, including all objects, machines and conveyor belts. This was done partly on the basis of existing plans and partly through accurate on-site measurements. This enabled us to determine the most efficient position of the new LED luminaires and to develop a solution that maximized both visibility and energy efficiency.
A second crucial step was the establishing clear zoning. On the plan, the different zones were defined and analyzed where motion detection could be integrated into storage areas and where time control could be programmed into production zones. This ensured that lighting was only active where and when it was needed, resulting in significant energy savings.
With a detailed lighting study, a clear plan of action and a substantiated savings model, we brought our proposal back to La Lorraine. During the presentation to Willem Rongé (Maintenance Manager) and Hans Van De Peer (Site Manager) explained how the new lighting solution would not only improve safety and efficiency, but also provide significant cost savings on energy bills.
Based on our findings, we conducted a comprehensive lighting study according to the prescribed lighting standards, specifically the NEN-EN 12464-1 standard, which provides guidelines for lighting indoor workplaces. We also created a detailed zoning and detector plan to optimize lighting in different sections of the plant.
This approach allowed us to reduce the total installed capacity from 80.27 kW with the old fluorescent lighting to only 16.79 kW with the new LED fixtures. In addition, by implementing motion detectors in storage areas and timetables in production areas, we almost halved the burning hours. These combined measures resulted in impressive energy savings of 92,09%, making the investment already within two years was recovered. In addition, 10% of investment costs are recovered through the relighting premium from the Flemish government.
The outdated system provided insufficient lighting on the shop floor and required constant maintenance due to frequent replacement of worn-out fluorescent fixtures.
The new LED lighting delivers significantly higher light output, while reducing energy consumption very dramatically.
The relighting project at La Lorraine Bakery Group in Schoten demonstrates how a well-designed lighting transition not only improves safety and ergonomics, but can also deliver significant energy savings. Thanks to the new LED solution, the site again meets all standards, while operational costs and ecological footprint have been drastically reduced. This project highlights the added value of a strategic relighting approach in industrial environments.
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