The reduction of the required energy constitutes a subject of major importance in the food industry, not only from an environmental point of view but also from an economic one.

The main practices, that are applied internationally, for energy saving include the minimisation of losses of heat/energy (eg use of suitable insulations), the use of co-production (combined production of heat and energy), the energy recovery (eg the heat that is use for evaporation can be partially recovered with condensation of the produced steam) and the minimisation the energy of the auxiliary plant, such as reducing the energy consumed for producing steam, compressed air or even the energy consumed in the refrigeration system.