Increased demand for water and energy and growing recognition of environmental issues motivate awareness of how these resources are used in industry. Industrial tomato processing consumes substantial quantities of both water and energy. To understand how these resources are used in tomato processing and what opportunities exist for improving efficiency, a water energy nexus (WEN) assessment was conducted that accounted for the various ways energy becomes embedded in water during processing by motors, pumps, fans, and boilers. The WEN assessment was conducted at an industrial tomato processing facility that processed 265 metric tonnes of fruit per hour to develop a map of water and associated energy use at each processing step. A total of 1.29 billion kilograms (kg) of water were used for the processing season, with 870 million kg routed to flumes. The analysis identified the thermal energy used to generate steam for the various heat exchangers and evaporators used during processing as the greatest source of embedded energy in process water (778,000 gigajoules per season). The electrical energy embedded in the process water totaled 4.4 million kilowatt-hours per season, over 80% of which was attributed to pumping. Moreover, the data were used to identify opportunities to improve efficiency by adjusting water loads on equipment and developing strategies for water and energy conservation and recovery. The baseline water and energy use data provided by the WEN assessment can enable additional modeling to assess resource efficiency measures and the life cycle impact of processed tomato products. Keywords:energy intensity food processing industrial ecology industrial metabolism material flow analysis (MFA) Supporting information is linked to this article on the JIE website Increasing demand for energy and freshwater worldwide has highlighted the need for efficient use of these resources. Moreover, the negative environmental impacts of fossil fuel use have Conflict of interest statement: The authors have no conflict to declare. created additional incentives to improve energy efficiency. The use of water and energy are often linked, given that energy is required to transport, heat, and cool water. Further, water in the form of steam may be used to generate energy in turbines. These relationships are termed the water energy nexus (WEN).

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