The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates 36m tons of food is discarded every year in America alone. On top of that, a significant amount of food is lost to inefficient processing before it can even reach consumers, according to pump manufacturer Mouvex.
Fighting waste
The company has launched its Product Recovery Initiative, announced at the recent Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) expo. The campaign is designed to show food and beverage manufacturers ways to pare down waste in their operations, while also attaining cost savings, with equipment like the company’s eccentric disc pump products.
Mouvex’s marketing director for the Americas, Carrie Halle, told FoodProductionDaily the effort to educate IFT attendees about the dangers of operational product waste met with favorable results.
“During the show, many attendees witnessed the demo unit from Mouvex showing how manufacturers can save money and recover product from the piping,” she said.
Efficiency tools
The Product Recovery Initiative involves a suite of market-specific tools intended to educate food industry professionals about efficient pump use, and pinpoint potential cost-saving areas. A multi-lingual website includes informational data, how-to videos, and other resources.
According to the company, efficient, reliable pumping is crucial to maximizing product recovery, and keeping down product waste. Producers should look for pumping tools capable of reliably stripping suction or discharge lines of raw materials and saleable end products.
Eccentric disc pumps, according to Mouvex, are suitable allies in product recovery because of a keen ability to pump air, creating a vacuum effect on the suction side and compressor effect on the discharge side. This capability is said to produce a “plug” effect that pushes product out of the piping.