The Machine that Turns Ice Cream into Energy | The Ben and Jerry's Chunkinator

 

The Machine that Turns Ice Cream into Energy | The Ben & Jerry's Chunkinator 

Ben & Jerry's is one of the most well-known ice cream companies, and as a certified B Corporation, they also care about corporate social responsibility. One of the coolest parts about the Unilever-owned brand is The Chunkinator, and that's saying a lot for the company that invented cookie dough ice cream! 

The Chunkinator turns ice cream into energy, so Ben & Jerry's uses their own product to power the production of more of that product. The Chunkinator is a BIOPAQ®AFR Biodigester, and it basically works like this: micro-organisms eat the ice cream in the machine and turn it into biogas. You can read more about it on the Ben & Jerry's website or the BIOPAQ®AFR official web page.

The Chunkinator can cut food waste by converting it into energy, and it can cut carbon emissions as well. Ben & Jerry's states that The Chunkinator has powered the production of 16 million pints of ice cream so far. That sounds like an impressive number, but the company produces that much ice cream every couple of weeks, according to Business Insider.

Even though the Chunkinator powers very little of Ben & Jerry's production, it's still a very impressive machine that could help pave the way for creative solutions to combat climate change. 

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