Water and Energy Use of Antimicrobial Interventions in a Mid-Size Beef Packing Plant

Abstract

Data regarding the water and energy usage of current antimicrobial interventions in beef packing plants is scarce. The objective of this study was to collect representative water and energy usage data in a beef packing plant, with emphasis on antimicrobial interventions, to provide baseline data for comparison of new intervention technologies developed by researchers. Permanent and portable water flow meters were installed on the plant's plumbing system to collect water flow data from March 2014 to March 2015. A local utility company was hired to meter electricity at the different subsystems using portable data loggers. The natural gas used in each subsystem was estimated by the amount of steam required to heat the water to the desired temperature and assuming the boiler efficiency as 82%, as estimated by the plant personnel. All data was normalized per 1000 kg live body weight (1000 kg LBW). The overall plant-wide water usage was 2968 L/1000 kg LBW (355 gal/1000 lb LBW). The antimicrobial interventions used 15.7% of the total water usage while viscera and byproducts processing, and overnight cleaning water accounted for 19% and 39% of the total water usage, respectively. The water usage was 100, 16, 253, and 97 L/1000 kg LBW for the pre-evisceration wash, organic acid spraying, carcass wash, and thermal pasteurization, respectively. The total metered electrical energy was 110.5 MJ/1000 kg LBW, over 96% of which was used by the plant's cooling and hydraulic systems. The overall plant-wide natural gas usage was 512.6 MJ/1000 kg LBW, 11.6% of which was used by antimicrobial interventions for water heating. The viscera and byproducts processing, overnight cleaning, and other usage and losses, accounted for 11.7%, 36.1%, and 40.6% of the total natural gas, respectively.

Assessment of water and energy use at process level in the U.S. beef packing industry: Case study in a typical U.S. large‐size plant

“…In our study, the water use in the kill floor was 246.2 L/t LCW, which is comparable with findings (252 L/t LCW) from Pagan et al (2002). The same situation applies to water use in plant cleaning (1,185.6 L/t LCW) in this study similar with water use in plant cleaning from other two studies (982 L/t LCW from Pagan et al (2002) and 1,157 L/t LCW from Ziara et al (2016). The water use in antimicrobial interventions (320.4 L/t LCW) from our study is also found to be close with the findings from another study reporting a similar value (369 L/t LCW) for these antimicrobial interventions (Ziara et al, 2016).…”

“…The same situation applies to water use in plant cleaning (1,185.6 L/t LCW) in this study similar with water use in plant cleaning from other two studies (982 L/t LCW from Pagan et al (2002) and 1,157 L/t LCW from Ziara et al (2016). The water use in antimicrobial interventions (320.4 L/t LCW) from our study is also found to be close with the findings from another study reporting a similar value (369 L/t LCW) for these antimicrobial interventions (Ziara et al, 2016). This similarity may be because these three antimicrobial interventions are automatic processes, often using similar equipment across the U.S. beef packing facilities.…”

“…The disparity in water use of rendering can be attributed to differences in production practices and differences in byproducts made such as edible rendering products and inedible rendering products. Electricity use of the refrigeration compressor system (26.2 kWh/t LCW) in the studied plant was found more efficient, than that (30.4 kWh/t LCW) reported in another mid-size beef packing plant (Ziara et al, 2016). This can be attributed to that higher operating capacity which led to a better electricity efficiency in the storage of refrigerated products.…”

“…2000; Pagan, Renouf, & Prasad, 2002;Ridoutt et al, 2015;Warnecke, Farrugia, & Ferguson, 2008;Ziara, Li, Dvorak, & Subbiah, 2016).…”

Sustainable Waste-to-Energy Technologies: Bioelectrochemical Systems

“…Furthermore, meat processing in slaughterhouses and packing plants requires a large amount of water, for washing and cleaning, which is then discharged as wastewater. For example, the water used in a mid-size beef packing plant is approximately 3000L/1000 kg live weight slaughtered (Ziara et al, 2016).…”