Hormel Reuses Reverse Osmosis Concentrate Water to Save Water, Sewage, Salt

Progressive Processing, located in Dubuque, Iowa, and owned and operated by Hormel Foods, makes Hormel Compleats microwave meals, bacon toppings, and Spam products. Production professionals at Progressive Processing are always looking for ways to reduce water usage, and their latest effort makes use of reverse osmosis concentrate (ROC) water.

ROC water can now be used in retort process control in place of soft cold water.Hormel FoodsWith approval from a water-chemistry consultant and the Hormel Foods Internal Thermal Processing Authority group, the Progressive Processing team verified that ROC water could supply the operation’s retort process control in place of soft cold water. Changes were then made to the plant’s plumbing to allow the ROC water, a byproduct of boiler feed water, to be used in the retorts to replace the use of cold soft water.

“Retorts cook most of the food produced at the facility, and a large amount of cold soft water was used for non-food-contact process control,” explains Randy Thole, manager of plant engineering for Hormel Foods. “Reverse osmosis filtering is used to treat the makeup water, which the boilers turn into steam, and the steam is used in the retorts.”