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Food industry – Top tips

Food industry – Top tips

  1. Energy – see Carbon Trust for advice on energy saving in the food and drink sector.
  2. Water
    3. – monitor your water use and set up a performance indicator of water use per unit of product output. Increases in water use can indicate a costly leak or overflow. See GG152R Tracking water use to cut costs.
  3. Water – install submeters for high using areas such as cleaning in place (CIP) systems, cooling towers, chillers, ingredient water and product wash water. See GG152R Tracking water use to cut costs.
  4. Water – construct a water balance. Estimate water use for each process and piece of equipment and keep investigating until the total matches actual consumption. See GG152R Tracking water use to cut costs and GG349 Water minimisation in the Food and Drink industry.
  5. Water and effluent – consider water-saving manual cleaning methods such as dry-cleaning floors before washing, using catch-trays to catch solid waste, trigger-action guns on hoses, and using screens on drains to catch solids. See GG522 Cost-effective water saving devices and practices - for commercial sites.
  6. Water and effluent – reduce effluent load and potentially increase yield by removing product from tanks, pipes and vessels before cleaning, eg by using a pigging system.
  7. Water and effluent – optimise CIP systems by removing product before pre-rinsing, use of final rinse water for pre-rinse, shut off pre-rinse supply as soon as solids have been flushed through (eg by visual inspection or turbidity meter), use of cleaning chemicals to reduce amount of water required, and programming controls to minimise water, energy and chemical use.
  8. Water and effluent – reduce trade effluent bills by installing effluent metering so bills are based on effluent flow rather than incoming metered water.
  9. Water – water-efficient devices on the water technology list can qualify for Enhanced Capital Allowances, which allows businesses to write off 100% of the investment against their taxable profits.
  10. Water – consider re-use of steam condensate, CIP final rinse water, permeate from ultrafiltration plant for uses where hygiene is less critical, eg vehicle wash, crate wash or CIP pre-rinse.
  11. Waste – use waste mapping and mass balance methods to understand where waste is arising in the process, where it is coming from, and how much it is really costing.
  12. Waste – calculate the true cost of waste including raw material waste, energy, transport and labour costs. Finding that waste costs 10-20 times as much as waste disposal can move waste up the agenda so it becomes a management issue and not just an environmental issue.
  13. Waste - segregate waste materials such as paper, cardboard, glass, cans, plastics and cooking oil for recycling. See EN506 Recycle waste and cut costs to the environment.
  14. Waste – using process control to increase yield and reduce waste can help reduce production costs by up to 5%. GG220 Low cost process control in food and drink processing.
  15. Waste – work with suppliers to ensure the packaging received on raw materials is recyclable, returnable or re-usable. GG482 Cutting costs and waste by optimising packaging use, or read about cleaner design.
  16. Waste, purchasing – consider buying in bulk to reduce packaging and costs (but take care not to over order). See CS619 Process improvement at catering supplier slashes production costs.
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