Touting the benefits of its AquaCheck water management service, which is offered by its Diversey business, Sealed Air's sector director of brew, beverage and pharma, Dr Andreas John, said that by introducing total water management on site, dairy processors can make significant savings.
“In the dairy industry you can quite often see savings related to the reduction of water consumption, when compared to the cost of these cleaning chemicals,” said John.
“This is a reason to introduce a program for total water management in dairy sites, which is not only looking at cleaning processes but also water consumption in general.”
“We have several examples of dairies where we could reduce the water consumption significantly, leading to savings of up sometimes up to 100,000 euros or more," he said.
Decrease operating costs, improve efficiencies
Diversey’s AquaCheck water management system involves three steps - measurement (Aqua-Scan), analysis (Aqua-Probe) and improvement (Aqua-Solve). It designed these to “decrease operating costs, improve operational efficiencies, save water and energy and reduce wastewater.”
A number of major dairy processors in Germany, the Netherlands, and France, have called on for this service, according to John.
“We try to identify, on one hand, saving opportunities for water, but also, on the other, the possibilities for the reuse of water,” he said.
“We are looking at this area for total costs - to try to optimize total costs on the sites.”
Opportunities to realize savings
In recent years, dairy processors in Europe and the US have been forced to cut costs and improve the efficiency of their operation in response to falling demand and increasing market competition.
Given these current complications and the increasing pressure to be sustainable environmental, dairy processors should be looking at water as an area of potential savings.
“Water consumption in some areas is a big concern,” said John.
“Look at the overall pressure on the food industry to save water and to have a sustainable approach to production. It makes sense to look at this area and try to investigate where you can save additional water."