Food & Beverage Industry Solutions
Our best-in-class solutions serve the needs of a wide range of food and beverage manufacturers across the globe
Fluence has more than 30 years of experience in delivering water, wastewater, and waste-to-energy projects to the food and beverage industry across the globe. Our unique technologies provide best-in-class treatment for incoming ingredient water, reduce operating costs by turning waste into a resource, and help our customers enhance their products.
We have experience providing solutions for breweries, wineries, fruit-juice producers, dairies, slaughterhouses, rendering plants, fish processors, bakers, candy and jam manufacturers, and more.
Fluence technical solutions cover the full water cycle, from supplying drinking and process water, to treatment of wastewater and sludge. We provide:
- General water treatment for drinking or industrial purposes
- Process water treatment for boiler feed and makeup water
- Cooling system treatment
- Treatment of cooling tower blowdown
- Condensate treatment
- Aerobic and anaerobic wastewater treatment
- Waste-to-energy
- Water recycling and reuse, including zero liquid discharge (ZLD)
- Food and beverage processing solutions
Fluence manages complex projects for food and beverage clients at a local level, using an integrated approach and ensuring short lead times. We offer reliable solutions with minimum risk and proactive service. Our scope of services includes:
- Pilot testing
- Concept design and economic evaluation, including ROI
- Detailed design
- Manufacturing and construction
- Installation and commissioning
- Training
- After-sales support
- Remote monitoring
- Operations and maintenance
- Financing solutions
Technologies to Serve the Food & Beverage Industries
Here's a small sampling of what Fluence can deliver for your food or beverage operation.
Ingredient Water Treatment
We produce the exact quality and quantity of water that customers need to manufacture their products. Processes are designed to meet specific requirements, and may include reverse osmosis (RO), ultrafiltration (UF), ion exchange resins, UV, ozone, and advanced oxidation.
Our ultrafiltration product line, one of our best-sellers, provides the following benefits:
- Constant water quality regardless of the total suspended solids (TSS) of feed water (turbidity < 0.1 NTU)
- A 50% smaller footprint than with conventional systems
- Removal of 99.99% (4-log) of viruses
- Removal of 99.9999% (6-log) of bacteria
- Arsenic removal with addition of coagulants
- Automatic integrity test of membranes
- Extends life of RO membranes when used as pretreatment for high silt density index (SDI) waters
Our reverse osmosis systems are particularly suitable for food and beverage applications. They include:
- Stainless steel skids and piping (sanitary construction)
- Membranes that can be sanitized in hot water
- Lowest water rejection available on the market (87.5% recovery)
- Longer life of filter elements and lower operating cost
- Exclusive pretreatment for high SDI waters
- Preventive maintenance that doesn't reduce membrane performance
- Elimination of bromide as a precursor of bromates in bottled water
- Automatized cleaning in place (CIP) per mounted array
Food and Beverage Processing
Fluence has decades of experience in product-enhancement technologies using ion exchange resins, absorbent resins, and membranes. Our innovative solutions are ideal for wine, fruit juice, and whey demineralization, and for cane sugar decolorizing.
Fluence is also a global leader in the design of 4SMB (four simulated moving bed) chromatography plants for the purification of fruit juices and the production of organic fructose without the use of chemical reagents.
We are experts in:
- Demineralization of fruit juices
- Recovery of organic acids and natural fruit colors
- Tartaric stabilization of wine
- Decolorizing of grape must, sugar cane, and fruit juices
- Debittering of fruit juices
- 4SMB chromatography
- Whey demineralization
Wastewater and Waste-to-Energy Solutions
Fluence offers a wide variety of wastewater treatment solutions to food and beverage customers, including anaerobic digestion (waste-to-energy), membrane bioreactors, moving bed bioreactors, aerobic and anaerobic systems, and nitrification-denitrification.
We provide nitrogen removal from wastewater, using traditional nitrification and denitrification and an innovative autotrophic biological process, which does not require organic carbon. Both processes convert the nitrogen into gaseous nitrogen without using acids or other chemicals and without generating any by-products.
Membrane Bioreactors (MBR)
Benefits of our highly successful membrane bioreactor (MBR) solutions include:
- Better-quality effluent, free of suspended solids
- Smaller footprint and less civil work
- Operation with higher concentration of solids (mixed liquor suspended solids (MLSS) of 8-20 g/L, versus 3-5 g/L with conventional treatment)
- Improved efficiency of the biological treatment
- Greater operational stability
The treated effluent is suitable for direct reuse, or can be further treated with reverse osmosis, activated carbon filtration, or ultraviolet disinfection for the production of process and ultrapure water.
Anaerobic Solutions
Our innovative biomass solutions turn process waste into a resource. Our plants are cost-effective, easy to operate, and low-maintenance.
Biomass treatment by anaerobic digestion allows for:
- Methane gas production
- Thermal heat production
Fluence solutions can be applied to ordinary food waste, complex biomasses, wastewater with high soluble COD concentration, sludge from slaughterhouses, fish processing plants, rendering plants, and more.
An-MBR for Dairy Applications
Fluence's latest technology development in anaerobic digestion has focused on anaerobic MBR, which combines anaerobic digestion with membrane bioreactor technology to replace centrifuges and dissolved air flotation (DAF) in the concentration of solid digestate.
Benefits of this new technology application include:
- Higher organic load processing than with conventional technologies
- Reduced digester volume requirements
- Better quality effluents
- Less polyelectrolyte use
- Use in upgrading existing facilities
How Can We Help Your Food or Beverage Operation?
Our delivery model is flexible and includes equipment sales, turnkey, lease with or without operation, after-sale support, operations and maintenance, as well as low-maintenance containerized solutions. We are also expert at helping our clients put together a financing solution.
If you're looking for water or wastewater treatment for your facility, contact our experts to discuss your specific project details, and learn how our cost-effective solutions can help you meet your goals and make the most of your assets.
SUSTAINABLE FOOD & BEVERAGE INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS
Contact us to learn more about our food and beverage industry solutions, or to discuss your next project with our experts.
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Featured Food & Beverage Case Studies
Wastewater Reuse at Bottling Plant in Argentina
FEMSA, one of the largest bottlers in Latin America, had to increase the capacity of the wastewater plant at its Alcorta facility in Buenos Aires, but there was no room for expansion. Fluence addressed the customer's requirements with membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology. A sequential batch reactor (SBR) was converted into a continuous bioreactor with an Airlift membrane clarification step. With the new technology, the treatment plant can handle higher concentrations of sludge with a smaller footprint than a conventional plant's. The plant produces treated wastewater suitable for reuse within the plant.
Reducing Sludge at a Fish Processing Plant
Fish processing produces an effluent particularly high in nitrogen and COD. A leading tuna processor in Ecuador wanted to add anaerobic digestion to its plant, but it had to be done without interrupting production. The successful renovation allowed the plant to meet environmental standards and reduce its sludge volume by 75%.
Decolorizing and Demineralizing Grape Juice in Argentina
Fluence supplied the Cyprus Water Development Department (WDD) with a 10,000 m3/d plant to temporarily relieve a water shortage in Limassol. Because we commissioned the plant less than five months after the order was placed, the Cyprus WWD received a reduced interest rate during construction. Based on WDD’s guaranteed minimum off-take of water, a fair escalation formula for the annual tariff adjustment, and appropriate collateral, we were able to finance the project with an international bank at a favorable interest rate, based on a mix of equity type funds and debt. This specific financing structure enabled us to negotiate a contract with an attractive tariff on the water supplied.
