New Report Helps Food and Drink Manufacturers Save Water.
Water is a precious resource. Even in the UK, where rain levels are high and water seemingly plentiful, supplies are finite. Rainfall is often irregular or erratic, with floods making the news far too often. During most summers, threats of water shortages are never far away, particularly in the densely populated areas of the east and south of England.
Climate change and expanding population are among the factors increasing the demand for good quality water. Winters are predicted to get warmer and wetter, and summers predicted to get hotter and drier. Globally, it’s forecast that unless things change, water withdrawal will exceed renewal by 2030.
New Report from Charity
There’s a new report from the UK registered charity Business in the Community which will be of interest to businesses that are involved in food and drink production. The report provides a practical resource for businesses in the food and drink sector in effective water use and management. Called “Smart Water: a prosperous future for the food and drink supply chain” (you can view it here as a pdf), the report explains the importance of looking after water, plus the business drivers to having a supply chain that’s resilient to risks associated with water.
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Food and Drink Production Reliant on Water
Food and drink manufacturers depend on reliable, clean and safe sources of water. As well as being an active ingredient of many products, water is used throughout food and drink production, from irrigating crops to cleaning and processing. In fact, up to 70% of water usage in some factories is down to cleaning processing equipment.
Benefits of Managing Water Correctly
Managing water correctly has a wide range of benefits. In addition to helping the environment and ensuring a sustainable future, it also makes sound commercial sense to reduce water consumption and use what we do have as efficiently as possible. So much so that saving water can directly reduce production costs and improve operational efficiencies.
The Smart Water report outlines ten reasons businesses should take action regarding water usage and management. In addition to reducing costs and increasing efficiency, it also highlights company reputation, social and corporate responsibility, avoiding disruption to production, flood protection, lower energy use, legislation compliance and investor expectations.
Practical Guidance
Whether it’s from an ethical, environmental or business point of view, most people and organisations accept that managing water efficiently makes sense. But where do businesses start?
A major part of the value of this report is the practical guidance it provides for companies to work through.
Using six clearly explained steps, the report demonstrates how businesses can start working towards sustainable water management. It builds on these steps using a wide selection of examples outlining what some companies are already doing. The report also has other sources of information, useful tools and other initiatives.
Saving Water through Pigging Technology
In 2016, sustainable processing and ‘green’ initiatives are key priorities for food and drink manufacturers. So water saving is already high on the agenda for many businesses. Many organisations are looking at the different types of technology they can implement to help with this.
The pigging systems technology provided by HPS is used for increasing yields and improving efficiencies by reducing waste. As well as significant reductions in waste product (recovering up to 99.5% of liquid), reducing water usage is one of the key benefits of pigging systems for food , beverage and drink companies.
For example, in food and drink production, it is common to flush out product using water when the pipes are due to be cleaned or the product changed. If using clean-in-place, the first stage can be to remove most of the product residue by flushing with water before beginning a chemical or detergent-based cleaning process. However, if most of the product has already been removed by a hygienic pigging system, the requirement for a lengthy flush out is reduced significantly (sometimes even eliminated. This reduces water usage considerably.
Find Out More
You can find out more about Business in the Community, the charity that produced the “Smart Water: a prosperous future for the food and drink supply chain” report, by visiting their website here.
There’s more information about food and drink processing companies that have implemented product recovery systems in our pigging systems case studies.
For further information about how pigging technology can increase yields, improve environmental credentials and save water in your business, please contact HPS or your nearest representative.