Drink industry – Top tips
Drink industry – Top tips
- Energy – see Carbon Trust for advice on energy saving in the food and drink sector.
- Has your site implemented a water management programme? If not, you could save 20% of your costs through good housekeeping and low-cost measures. More on reducing water and effluent costs.
- Check your most recent water bill. Is the amount of water used per volume of water used more than benchmark levels? Benchmark levels of water consumption (m3 per m3 of product) are- brewing 3.4, bottled waters 1.6, fruit juices 3.5, carbonates/dilutables 2.3, carbonates/fruit juices 6.1. If it is more, you could do better – others have. More on reducing water and effluent costs.
- Breweries - check your trade effluent bill. Is the average chemical oxygen demand (COD) of your effluent more than 2,000 mg/litre? If it is more, you could do better. See GG135 Reducing water and effluent costs in breweries.
- Map the water distribution system, install sub-meters for major equipment and monitor the readings on a computer spreadsheet. Comparison of meter readings with expected use will help identify potential savings and sudden increases could help pinpoint a leak. More on reducing water and effluent costs.
- To minimise trade effluent costs, keep surface water and domestic sewage drainage separate from trade effluent so that the higher charge is paid only for 'dirty' effluent. More on reducing water and effluent costs.
- If possible install effluent metering so that trade effluent charges are based on metered flow, rather than incoming water supply. If possible, install flow-weighted automated sampling equipment as this will give the most accurate reading of effluent strength and avoids charges based on unrepresentative samples. This kind of data can also be used for mass balance studies. More on reducing water and effluent costs.
- As well as minimising effluent volumes, it is also important to take action to reduce the strength of the effluent. Discharging uncontaminated water to drain dilutes your effluent, but increases the volume element of the trade effluent charge. More on reducing water and effluent costs (FDwater).
- Do not fill the mash tun too full as excess wort (with a high COD) can be left after transfer to the copper (and subsequently the fermenting vessel). Train staff to add the correct amount of liquor and install a meter to measure the volume of liquor added to the mash tun. If brews are fairly frequent, store your surplus wort and add it to the next brew, rather than discharge it to drain.
- CIP uses much less water than a hose for cleaning vessels and tanks. If CIP is not available, a high pressure hose will use much less water than a standard hose. If appropriate and hygienically acceptable, use wash water and detergents from other cleaning operations for the pre-rinse.
- Consider using cross-flow filtration as an alternative to Kieselguhr or rotary filters to reduce water use and beer losses.
- Replace vessel and cask-washer spray nozzles with more effective designs. These reduce the amount of water needed and also make the wash shorter. Check damaged nozzles for efficiency. Repair or replace them immediately to avoid inadequate cask cleaning or unnecessarily long washing cycles.
- Re-use water wherever possible, eg pipe final rinsewater from cask-washing back to the pre-rinse stage.
- Water used for pre-rinsing bottles before packaging can be collected in a dedicated tank and re-used directly for rinsing or recycled for other purposes, eg floor washing, cooling water and liquid ring vacuum pump seal water.
- Re-use cooling water for washing or install a closed-loop cooling tower rather than discharge to drain.
- When chasing product through transfer pipework, install an interface detection system to minimise the quantity of product going to drain. When replacing sections of pipework, consider using pigging to clean/purge pipelines.
- In planning CIP sets, install a recovered water tank so that final rinsewater can be recycled to the pre-rinse stage. To prevent overflows from the recovered water tank, make sure the volume of water used in the final and pre-rinse stages roughly balances. Recover and re-use detergent or caustic several times.
- In effluent treatment, excessive retention times in the balancing tank can cause problems in biological treatment and lead to failures to meet consent limits for pH and COD. Odour can also become a problem. Adjust the balancing tank level to cope with peaks and troughs in effluent flow.
- For cleaning, use brushes, mops, scrapers and squeegees instead of hoses when cleaning floors and tanks. Use a narrower diameter hose wherever possible. When rinsing open vessels, 'burst' rinsing, ie a short, intensive spray of water, is more effective. Use trigger-operated spray guns on hoses to stop the flow when the hose is put down. Make sure your operators are happy with the hose triggers provided. If they are not, seek an alternative solution. Make sure that mains pressure is high enough for the spray nozzle.
- For shrink-wrapping bottles, use several sizes of shrink-wrap to match the pack size and reduce film use; standardise on one type of self-erecting cardboard tray to reduce cardboard use and increase efficiency; re-use packaging spacers from imported bottles to pack bottles onto pallets. See CS406 Wine company reduces packaging and tastes success.