Advance Brands

Year Submitted: 2006

Process: Oven Cleaning

Industry: Food/Beverage Manufacturing

Wastes Reduced: Wastewater

Location: Orange City IA

No. of employees: 500+

Contact: Tom Bruton

Phone: 1-877-447-3279

Description:

The most troublesome environmental aspect at Advance Brands is the high BOD in the plant's wastewater. To improve effluent quality and reduce the treatment, sewer, and compliance costs, the company wishes to minimize the organic loading of the wastewater coming into its pretreatment facility.
The company would also like to reduce the amount of solid waste disposed of in the landfill. However, because no one had recently investigated waste management at the facility, plant employees had little understanding of the origin or disposal method of waste streams.

P2 Application:

Currently, the caustic cleaning chemical used to sanitize the ovens and fryers each night is drained to the wastewater pretreatment unit in large batches. This large volume of high-pH caustic disrupts the treatment system and the BOD discharge increases rapidly. By installing a clarifier tank on the production floor, the company will be able to reuse the caustic for several consecutive nights. This will reduce usage of the cleaning chemical and the acid used to neutralize it in the wastewater pretreatment unit.
Another opportunity is the installation of a new grease skimmer. This skimmer tank would provide the hydraulic retention time needed for the grease to float to the top of the oven wastewater. Skimming this grease from the surface of the water would then decrease the effluent BOD. Piping the grease to an outside storage tank would allow Advance Brands to sell this material to a rendering company instead of paying for disposal.
Presently, the blow down from the cooling towers is sent to the sanitary sewer and treated like wastewater. By repiping this clean non-process water to the storm sewer, unnecessary hydraulic load on the pretreatment unit could be eliminated and treatment chemicals could be saved.

Details of Reductions

• Grease
  

• wastewater
  

Additional Information :

Advance Brands, L.L.C. is a joint venture between Advance Foods of Enid, Oklahoma and the Excel Corporation of Wichita, Kansas. At its production facility in Orange City, the company processes purchased meat into ready-to-eat consumer goods such as chicken nuggets and fajita meat, and then distributes these products to grocery stores nationwide.

Source: P2RIC