July 24, 2024
Transforming the energy-intensive, fossil-fuel-reliant food and beverage industry, one factory at a time.
Global food systems account for over one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, and the food sector uses 70% of the world’s freshwater supply.
With stricter regulations being implemented around the world, the spotlight is on optimising resource management and reducing carbon emissions. At the same time, consumers expect food and beverage companies to take the lead on sustainable change.
To help the industry meet these demands, a new team of specialists is advising food and beverage producers on sustainable factory design and how to implement energy and water-saving solutions.
Customers want low-carbon, efficient factories
“We need you to create a team that can design and retrofit food processing factories to make them more sustainable.”
When Nicole Uvenbeck received a call from her manager last May, the task was simple: Set up a team that could help customers make food processing factories more energy and water-efficient and less wasteful. Recently, Nicole launched the Factory Sustainable Solutions (FSS) team as its director.
“We can harvest heat from different sources like wastewater or by-product flows.”
“Traditional processing methods can generate waste heat, excessive water use and untreated wastewater,” says Nicole. “We can’t live without the food that’s processed and packaged in these factories, but we need to tackle the energy and water consumption that gives these factories such a large environmental footprint.”
First, Nicole had to nail down who and what was needed to give the customers what they wanted. “They were saying, ‘We want you to tell us what to do on a factory level so we can be as low-carbon as possible and more efficient with our water and energy use,” she says.
The team drew up technical plant and equipment blueprints that focused on three areas: energy, water, and cleaning in place (CIP), where the interior of tanks and process equipment is cleaned without being dismantled. Then, it was time to define the solution portfolio.
Filling up the portfolio with the perfect products
To choose the best solutions, they had to map factory needs and identify any gaps. That included looking at different technologies and interviewing people to understand what had been done before.
“The transition to renewable energy makes a lot of sense,” says Nicole. “To save water and improve CIP, condition-based monitoring turned out to be the perfect fit because it allows us to clean when it’s needed instead of doing time-based cleaning.”
“To get the most out of a heat pump, you can put it in a place where it can tap into other waste heat streams in the factory.”
The team also met with start-ups at varying stages of development to find new solutions that could redefine sustainability in factories. One technology was an immediate hit: the heat pump.
Recovering energy with heat pumps
Heat pumps make sense for many different processes in food processing factories with their ability to process waste heat so it can be used elsewhere in the factory. One of the biggest opportunities right now is to integrate them into the powder business.
“Drying during powder production is very energy demanding. With heat pumps, we can recover and reuse a lot of production heat and save energy,” says Nicole.
The first tests indicate that heat pump technology, when combined with renewable electricity, can play a key role in increasing factory energy efficiency. And there are many areas of untapped potential.
“We can harvest heat from different sources,” says Nicole. “We could potentially take heat from wastewater or by-product flows.”
Increasing energy savings with a full plant-level focus
But heat pumps also challenge the conventional way of doing things in certain processes. With dairy and plant-based beverages like soy milk and oat drink, for example, direct ultra-high temperature (UHT) treatment is often used instead of indirect UHT treatment.
“During the direct UHT process, steam is produced, which consumes a lot of energy. By integrating a high lift heat pump in the process line, we can reduce the amount of primary energy used by reusing the waste heat and turning it into steam,” says Nicole.
“Many companies want to reduce their footprint, but a business still needs to be profitable, so we have to prove that our solutions are cost-effective, no matter the energy source.”
The heat pumps used for direct UHT treatment are massive, and ideally, they’re set to run continuously. This goes against traditional direct UHT treatment, which runs for around 8 hours, after which the cleaning process is initiated.
“To get the most out of the heat pump, you can put it in a place where it’s not only used for direct UHT treatment,” says Nicole. “That way, it can tap into other waste heat streams in the factory, and you can elevate your savings from the line level to the plant level.”
Building the best-practice line while selling one-off solutions
To determine the best use of solutions like heat pumps, FSS works closely with the different experts in the company.
“We’ve worked closely with our colleagues who design cheese lines, for example, to figure out how to create a best-practice line where the heat pump is integrated,” says Nicole.
But they can’t wait until everything is perfectly in place, so the team is working on two tracks—one with the business streams and the other in the market, where it’s all about acting now and offering what’s in the portfolio.
“It's a really good start to have best practice lines defined, and then the next step is to take things to a solidified factory level,” says Nicole.
The success of some solutions depends on maturity – and geography
The team's forward-looking approach means that some start-ups they work with still need to do pilot runs or tests for another year.
“Sometimes, we just have to wait, no matter how exciting the product might be,” says Nicole. “That’s one of the toughest parts for me because I just want to get our offering out there.”
And it’s not just solutions that have to catch up. Some regions are well on their way towards renewable electricity, while others still subsidise fossil fuels.
“Many companies want to reduce their footprint, but a business still needs to be profitable, so we have to prove that our solutions are cost-effective, no matter the energy source,” says Nicole.steam,” says Nicole.
“We can't live without the food that's processed and packaged in these factories, but we need to tackle the energy and water consumption that gives these factories such a large environmental footprint."
The same goes for water, explains Nicole. “It depends a lot on where the water is. In some regions, it’s cheap and abundant. In others, it’s becoming more scarce, and in those cases, there is more interest in our solutions.”
From a phone call to a future of factories in perfect flow
The team has already worked with more regions than Nicole had anticipated—and the different customers all have different, unique challenges.
“We met a customer in South Africa recently, and I saw how water scarcity and power outages are a huge challenge there,” says Nicole. “There’s no reliable electricity infrastructure to depend on, so we need back-ups in place to power the heat pumps, and we need to be even more mindful of water use.”
Reflecting on her journey from the phone call that started it all, Nicole is proud—but only for a moment before she’s ready for the next project.
“All projects have different challenges and opportunities, and I’m excited to take them on,” she says. “We’re just scratching the surface, but it feels like we’re outlining the blueprint for a more sustainable food processing industry with every new customer.”
More stories from our world
