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Food Industry

Complete Water Analysis for Food Industry Applications

Abundant, clean water is essential to food processing. It is not only a key ingredient but it’s also a medium to clean and move raw materials and is the principal agent used in sanitizing plant machinery.

At Hach®, we understand your water needs when it comes to ensuring the highest levels of water handling efficiency, product quality, consistency, safety and social responsibility.

Monitoring Influent to Meet Regulations, Reduce Costs, Protect the Environment

Water is a critical topic in the food industry, as companies are encouraged to pay more attention to wastewater management to meet stricter regulations, protect social reputations and reduce energy consumption.

Global food companies have established internal wastewater guidelines requiring their operations to monitor key influent and wastewater parameters and comply with limits by sampling at set frequencies. These leading food processors are using science-based rules aimed at having a net-zero impact on their local communities’ water resources.

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Hach Solutions for the Food Industry

Whether it is to maintain product quality, prevent product loss, meet your compliance limits or optimize your water treatment, we have customizable solutions for your unique challenges.

Hach can help you:

Key Measurement Parameters in Food Plants

Interactive Food Plant

1  -  Delivery of Stocks

2  -  Production

3  -  Dispatch

A  -  Water Conditioning and Treatment

B  -  Steam/Power Generation and Cooling

C  -  Neutralization

D  -  Biological Wastewater Treatment

Hach and Water Efficiency and Security

Hach supports our customers’ pledges, which are aligned with the principle of attaining a circular water economy within their manufacturing operations.  The “Net Zero Water ” objective for the industry aims at reducing absolute water use by 100% and the more ambitious “Net Water positive” goal seeks to replenish back into the local watersheds more than 100% of the water used.

We focus on providing the tools that improve operational and agricultural process water-use efficiencies, as well as local water replenishment in high water-risk areas suffering from a lack of water security. We work to understand the water challenges at your local level and support solutions that address the specific needs, not only of your operation but also of the watershed where it operates.

Hach supports the establishment of science-based targets (SBT), as directed by the 2025 water-sustainability commitments from our customers in the food industry.

Featured Food Applications

Beverage

From beer to soft drinks to bottled water and wine, Hach can help you meet the beverage quality control demands at your facility. For full information on Hach solutions for the beverage market, see our Beverage Industry page.

Food Oils

Ensuring the quality and sanitation of vegetable oil production for human consumption, from soybean, olive, sunflower and other edible oils is of paramount importance to food processors. Hach supplies the analytical solutions that your extraction and oil processing plants require by providing timely information to your wastewater management teams to assess compliance and industry regulation requirements, in addition to optimizing the reuse of as much of this vital element as is technically and economically feasible.

Fruits, Vegetables, Corn, Grains, Fish/Seafood, Flavorings, Additives, etc.

Food processors require large quantities of high-quality water for a range of operations, including blending or mixing, cleaning, steam production, etc. All of these factors are important for overall quality assurance and sanitation. As water may contain dissolved minerals, organic matter, gases and microbial contaminants, understanding water quality and how it moves through the factory is one part of the equation needed to produce safe, high-quality foods.

Meats and Poultry

The use of water with adequate, chemical and microbiological quality is of fundamental importance. Food processors must take steps to ensure that the water and water systems in their plants are safe and under their control.

Milk and Dairy

Dairy processing is a challenging environment for analysis of FOGS (Fats, Oils, Grease and Solid Waste), salts and particulates that are inevitably present in process streams. Saving time or increasing the reliability of your analyses to stay in compliance with industry regulations is key.

In the dairy market, efficient monitoring of the production process allows the customer to increase productivity and reduce costs by eliminating unnecessary acquisitions and purchase of raw materials.

Our BioTector instruments help with monitoring product loss to assist in the identification of faulty equipment or water reuse streams in your application. Read this Case Study where Hach has seen that as a result of using reliable TOC monitoring, a client achieved a considerable milk waste reduction, thus reducing processing costs at their Waste Water Treatment Plan (WWTP). Typically, lost product levels can be reduced by a 15% (conservative as some clients have seen up to 40% reduction).

Sweeteners / Sugars

By providing information to manage the water in our customers’ wet corn or sugar mills, we have learned how critical it is to measure the factors which influence overall quality assurance and sanitation in these operations.

Our understanding of water quality standards in the sweeteners industry and how they are impacted within the different processes at the factory positions us to become a partner of choice to assist our customers in producing safe, high-quality food ingredients.

Vegetable Oils and Proteins

In the food processing industry, increased vegetable oil and protein consumption is gaining market acceptance. The related processing facilities require significant amounts of water - not only for growing the vegetables but for processing these in operations such as cleaning, blending, mixing, steam production, etc.

We holistically support the analytical requirements for your plants, from providing information to manage the quality of your influents to detecting product loss in your wastewater streams.

See All Solutions for the Food Industry

Incoming water quality directly impacts product quality. The consistency and purity of your influent or raw water greatly affects the taste and quality of your final product. We understand that the demands of monitoring and treating influent or raw water impact the longevity of your equipment and product quality.

Proper treatment and conditioning are essential for water as it enters any production process. The water used in production lines of food facilities must not only meet drinking water regulations, it must be treated to remove additional minerals and chemicals which could impact taste and production processes.

Parameters Relevant to Influent/Raw Water Processes:

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