Benchmarks, Evaporation & Whey5 / 13
Specific Energy: kWh per Litre
Liquid, cheese and powder sites differ by an order of magnitude; product mix and the spring flush make normalisation non-negotiable.
10 min read · Jacob Willis, Net Zero Lead · Last reviewed July 2026
Ask what a dairy should use per litre and the only honest first answer is another question: what kind of dairy? The sector's specific energy consumption spans an order of magnitude between a liquid-milk site and a powder plant, for physics reasons no efficiency programme can bridge, and within any one site the cows impose a 20% seasonal swing that flatters spring and damns autumn. This lesson builds dairy benchmarking on the SEC discipline the food course established: same method, dairy denominators, and two traps of the sector's own.