Foods & Beverages
The food and beverages processing industry requires a huge amount of water. One of the main problems is the amount of waste water continuously produced in the food plants. The water is used as an ingredient, a cleaning agent, for boiling and cooling purposes, for transportation and conditioning of raw materials:
The average wastewater flow per ton of product is given in the following table:
Food and beverage | Flow m3/ton of product |
Beer | 9-11.5 |
Bread | 2-3.5 |
Meat packing | 13.5-18 |
Milk products | 9-18 |
Whiskey | 54.5-73 |
Food processing can be divided into four main fields:
- Meat, poultry and seafood
- Fruits and vegetables
- Dairy
- Beverages
As an example, find below some wastewater issues and CBI pretreatments associated to a kind of food processing.
Food and beverage type | Associated wastewater pollutants | CBI Pretreatment |
brewed beverages | BOD | Centrifugation, biological treatment |
Meat and poultry | BOD | Screening, sedimentation, biological treatment |
Rice | BOD, TSS | Chemical precipitation |
Bakeries | BOD , FOG, detergents | Biological treatment |
Soft drinks | BOD , TSS, alkalinity | Neutralization, screening, biological treatment |