A North Yorkshire food manufacturer has cut energy consumption by 14% after investing in intelligent monitoring technology that is transforming the way it manages its factory.

HECK, based in Bedale, produces premium sausages, burgers, mince and meatballs.

The family-firm installed a digital Energy Management System (EMS) with support from Made Smarter Yorkshire after soaring electricity prices almost tripled its energy bills.

James Ashford, Head of Procurement, said: “Made Smarter removed a significant amount of risk, made the investment much easier to justify and gave us the confidence to move forward.”

The Challenge

Founded by Debbie and Andrew Keeble in 2013, HECK has grown into a national food brand supplying major supermarkets and retailers across the UK. Focused on innovation, nutrition and convenience, the company is known for products such as 97% pork sausages and being one of the first manufacturers to bring chicken sausages to market. It now produces more than one million sausages a day and has expanded to a seven-day operation to meet growing demand.

Rapid growth brought new challenges. While the business had invested heavily in automation and digital technologies, many systems operated independently, leaving a £40 million business still reliant on spreadsheets and legacy software.

At the same time, soaring energy prices almost tripled electricity costs. Having already invested in solar panels, HECK’s next priority was understanding exactly where energy was being used so it could identify waste, target investment and improve efficiency.

The Solution

Working with Made Smarter, HECK developed a Digital Roadmap that identified energy management as an early priority for improving efficiency while supporting its wider digital transformation.

The business secured a £20,000 grant towards a £44,000 EMS. Effectively acting as a giant smart meter, it monitors energy consumption across factory assets, providing real-time visibility of electricity use throughout the manufacturing operation.

Behind the hardware sits Best Energy’s intelligent monitoring platform, which continuously analyses performance and alerts the team to abnormal energy consumption, equipment behaviour and other issues requiring attention.

The platform monitors individual equipment, allowing the team to identify machinery operating outside normal hours, understand where energy is being wasted and build business cases for future investment.

The investment also marked the first phase of a wider energy optimisation programme. The data generated has since enabled HECK to expand the platform, invest in additional energy-saving technologies and target its largest energy users with confidence.

The Benefits

The Energy Management System has given HECK real-time visibility of energy use across its factory, transforming how the business understands and manages consumption.

Approximately half of the company’s manufacturing assets are now monitored, with energy consumption across those assets already reduced by around 14%.

Real-time monitoring allows the business to identify equipment consuming power unnecessarily, investigate abnormal energy usage and respond quickly when assets operate outside expected patterns.

The data has also enabled HECK to make smarter investment decisions.

One of the first major projects focused on refrigeration, which accounts for around 50 to 60% of the factory’s energy consumption. Using the monitoring data, HECK justified a £60,000 investment in an advanced refrigeration optimisation system that controls cooling based on product temperature rather than fluctuating air temperature, significantly reducing compressor energy use.

The system also helped optimise the factory’s industrial bin washer. By changing the cleaning chemistry, HECK reduced operating temperatures from around 90°C to 55°C while maintaining the same hygiene standards, with the resulting energy savings immediately visible through the monitoring platform.

Beyond reducing energy costs, the platform is helping improve factory planning by providing visibility of electrical capacity across the site, enabling machinery to be installed more efficiently while reducing the risk of overloads and unplanned downtime. It also supports preventative maintenance by identifying unexpected increases in equipment power consumption that may indicate developing mechanical faults before failures occur.

The Future

Alongside continued investment in energy efficiency, the business is implementing a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to replace legacy software, connect operational data and create a single source of truth across the organisation.

Looking further ahead, HECK plans to build on those digital foundations by introducing agentic AI tools that make it easier for employees to interrogate business data while helping customers access recipes, product information and cooking advice through more personalised digital services.

James added: “The key is getting the foundations right first. Once you’ve got that foundation, everything else becomes possible.”