Food and Beverage
Why Does the Food & Beverage Industry Need Wastewater Treatment?
Whether it’s a dairy operation or a soft drink bottling plant, the food & beverage industry faces some of the most contaminated wastewater across any industry. We’ve seen cases where the effluent tests over 25,000 mg/L BOD. Untreated municipal sewage usually tests at 300 mg/L!
Discharging that untreated (or even undertreated) can cost you in surcharges from the local publicly owned treatment works (POTW). Worse, it can lead to permit violations and enforcement action under the Clean Water Act.
But beyond keeping your operation compliant, finding ways to minimize water usage is a never-ending battle. Washing, rinsing, cooking, cooling, and cleaning all take a lot of water. Nearly all of that water is contaminated by the end of the process.
Investing in food & beverage industry wastewater treatment not only provides peace of mind knowing you’re in good standing with regulatory bodies, but it also lets you reuse water in some processes to cut your water bill down.
Challenges in Treating Wastewater in the Food & Beverage Industry
The tricky part of finding a wastewater treatment solution for your company is that you’re not only dealing with high organic strength, but constant variance. You need a system that can keep up and evolve to changing needs in real time.
High BOD and Organic Loading
The sheer volume of sugars, starches, proteins, and alcohol residues that come out in food & beverage discharge pushes BOD beyond what conventional activated sludge systems are equipped to handle. Meat processing and dairy operations are among the worst offenders.
Fats, Oils, and Grease (FOG)
You know all too well what a persistent problem FOG can be in food processing wastewater. It coats equipment, clogs membranes, and gets in the way of biological treatment if it gets to the reactor without being fully broken down. Most treatment trains need a dedicated separation stage before the biological processes can even begin working.
Variance With the Seasons and Production Run
A winery obviously runs much heavier during crush season, then drops to minimal flow the rest of the year. In the same vein, a candy manufacturing company shifts its formulas by product run. Food & beverage wastewater treatment has to be capable of adapting to different conditions in real time. Fixed-design systems don’t cut it in this industry.
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What Makes bioprocessH2O the #1 Choice For Food & Beverage Industry Wastewater Treatment?
We’ve been building food & beverage industry wastewater treatment systems since 2008, and have worked with Coca-Cola, Shamrock Farms, Haribo, and dozens of other F&B operations across North America. Companies choose us because they get a fully custom system with ongoing support long after installation.
Built for High-Strength Organic Loads
Our world-renowned bioFLOW MBR water treatment system brought one of the largest soft drink manufacturers in the country from over 25,000 mg/L BOD down to below 500. The way it works is by pairing bacteria with ultrafiltration membranes. The end result is water that’s clean enough to be reused for cooling and rinsing applications.
Meanwhile, our bioFAS MBBR wastewater treatment systems have managed to hold 90% BOD removal across three installations for a major food manufacturer, even during seasonal production swings. This treatment technology grows bacteria on plastic carriers, naturally ramping up or down based on the strength of waste coming through the system.
Designed Around Your Specific Process
We start every custom build with a full analysis of your wastewater. We run lab testing on actual samples from your process, and if need be, we even go as far as to set up a pilot study before committing to a full-scale design.
The technology follows the data. You can rest assured you’re getting a wastewater treatment tailored to your unique needs. Not a one-size-fits-all solution.
One Team From Design to Post-Installation Support
bioprocessH2O handles everything from engineering to fabrication, installation, automation, and ongoing service under one roof. We never rely on subcontracted control panels or third-party integrators anywhere in the chain. You work with the same project team from the first conversation all the way through post-commissioning support.
You also get unparalleled remote monitoring capabilities with our controls package. This lets your operators and our experts track system performance in real time. You’re never left on your own, even years post-installation. bioprocessH2O is a partner you can trust for the long haul.
Frequently Asked Questions
It’s loaded with organic matter, suspended solids, fats, oils, grease, and nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. Cleaning chemicals, sanitizers, and pH swings from CIP (clean-in-place) cycles only complicate things further.
Almost all of them, but especially dairy, meat processing, wineries, breweries, soft drink and juice production, candy manufacturing, seafood processing, potato processing, and bakeries. Any operation producing wastewater that exceeds municipal discharge limits is a candidate for investing in food & beverage industry wastewater treatment.
Yes. Every system is purpose-built with your regulatory challenges in mind.
Reducing BOD and TSS below surcharge thresholds will eliminate the monthly penalties you’ve been paying for all this time. MBR systems can also help bring your water bill down by giving you reusable water for certain non-contact applications.
This happens all the time, and we make sure our MBR and MBBR systems are nimble enough to adapt to varying inputs. We can also add more treatment stages or increase reactor volume if your production expands beyond the system’s original capacity. We mean it when we say bioprocessH2O is your long-term partner in treating food & beverage industry wastewater.
Meat processing wastewater treatment, winery wastewater treatment, dairy industry wastewater treatment - even if it's not F&B, we can handle it. Reach out today!
Applicable Solutions
Largest Soft Drink Producer
Landfill Leachate
Potato Processing Plant
Letterkenny Army Depot
Cheese Producer
