Category Archives: Food

Top Reasons Why You Should Recycle Your Cooking Oil

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Cooking oil is one of the most used products in the world. It is used in all restaurants and in every home. Making it the most used product in the world.

Restaurants mostly use cooking oil to deep fry their food. As a result, restaurants have thousands of liters of cooking oil waste. More liters are also wasted from home.

Rarely do hotels, restaurants, and homes practice safe disposal of cooking oil. Many just pour it down the sink drain.

This results in clogged pipes that need you to call a plumber regularly. Beyond the home and the restaurant kitchen, poor disposal of cooking oil leads to clogging up sewage systems.

To avoid this, cooking oil should be recycled. Here are the main reasons why you should recycle cooking oil.

Why You Should Recycle Your Cooking Oil

1. Reduce Impact On The Environment

Proper disposal and recycling of cooking oil help to improve the environment. Pouring used cooking oil down the drain is detrimental to the environment.

Clogged pipes and drainage systems have a great impact on the cleanliness of the environment. Clogged pipes leak. This causes puddles of waste to spill to the ground and polluting the environment.

When homes and restaurants opt for used oil recycling, the impact of the poorly disposed cooking oil on the environment reduces significantly. There are fewer clogged and leaky pipes that cause sewage to leak to the ground.

In addition, homes, restaurants, and city governments in charge of public drainage systems will save lots of money. Clogged and leaky pipes cost lots of money to fix. Homes and restaurants don’t have to keep on calling plumbers to unblock their drainage pipes.

2. Create Unique Products

Used oil recycling results in the creation of unique products. There is a range of products that can be made from recycled cooking oil.

At home, you can make lubricants, soap, and many other products.

Recycling used oil commercially converts the cooking oil to biofuels. These biofuels are then sold to transport and manufacturing companies as environmentally friendly fuel.

renewable-diesel

Biofuels are increasingly being used to power vehicles around the world

When this fuel is used, there is little pollution to the environment. It also burns more efficiently than fossil fuel. This ensures that there is little waste in the process they are used in. Also, if the fuel spills, it causes no harm to the environment.

Recycled used oil can also be converted to animal feeds for pigs, fish, and other commercial animals and pets.

3. A Source Of Income

Another reason why you should recycle cooking oil is that it is a source of income. Homes, hotels, and commercial kitchens can use cooking oil recycling as a source of extra income.

Oil recycling companies buy waste cooking oil from homes and hotels. Recyclers provide participating homes and hotels waste containers. They can pour their waste cooking oil into these containers.

used cooking oil as a source of income

Recyclers will then have select days on which they collect the waste cooking oil from homes and hotels. The more waste cooking oil you have, the more you earn.

The recycling companies also contract transporters to collect the oil from the different homes and hotels supplying to them. This helps to create employment and become a source of income for a large number of operators.

4. It Is Easy And Cost Effective

Recycling used cooking oil is easy and effective. You can recycle used cooking oil at home or commercially.

At home, the reagents for oil recycling are easily available. With the right skills, you can convert your waste cooking oil into soap and pet feeds easily.

used-cooking-oil

Commercially, processing waste cooking oil is a simple five-step process. It is easy to complete with a little training and convert the waste cooking oil into biofuel.

Conclusion

Everyone should recycle their used cooking oil. It is easy to do and you can make a myriad of products from the waste cooking oil. It also helps to create a cleaner environment and reduce the impact of pollution.

Benefits of Using Used Cooking Oil as a Biofuel

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Used cooking oil is one of the major sources of biofuel. As the push for alternative sources of energy is enhanced, biofuel production has also gone into high gear. As such, it has moved from the unsustainable food sources to more sustainable sources such as used cooking oil.

used-cooking-oil

With the adoption of used cooking oil as a source of biofuel, producers have gained numerous benefits. Here are a few.

Cheap to procure

One of the major benefits of used cooking oil as a source of biofuels is that it is cheap to procure. Sources of used cooking oil abound, and they are happy to have it offloaded off their homes and their premises.

Most times, you will find that those that have the used cooking oil will pay to have it taken away from them. As such, hotels and restaurants and even households pay biofuel companies to collect it from their premises.

This makes the process of collecting used cooking oil efficient and affordable. This is a huge first step in the recycling of used cooking oil into biofuel.

Easy to process

Once the used cooking oil arrives at the processing center, it passes through a chemical process that converts the used cooking oil to biofuel.

The process is easy and uses easily available reagents. This process eliminates all the impurities within the used cooking oil. It is a five-stage chemical process that culminates in the conversion of used cooking oil into a useful biofuel.

Environmentally friendly

Another benefit derived from used cooking oil as a biofuel, is the fact that it is environmentally friendly. Biofuels produced from used cooking oil can replace fossil fuel diesel in a world ravaged by global warming. It burns efficiently and thus has almost zero emissions that can be harmful to the environment.

biofuel-UCO

Further, converting the used cooking oil into biodiesel goes a long way in ensuring that the environment is clean. When poorly disposed of, used cooking oil cause untold harm to the environment and drainage infrastructure.

Used in a myriad of diesel machines

Biofuel from used cooking oil can easily replace diesel in vehicles and plant machinery. After processing, the resulting biofuel can easily replace diesel in numerous existing machines and vehicles. Many of these machines will not need any re calibration for them to use this fuel.

The use of used cooking oil biofuel will thus save money for the users and also help them reduce their impact on the environment. Company trucks and plant machinery that use diesel can easily switch to biofuels and companies will see a significant savings in their fuel expense as well.

Can be used to manufacture diverse products

Used cooking oil when recycled is not limited only to the production of biofuels. Rather, it can be used to produce a range of other products and materials that could be a significant business unit.

Used cooking oil can be processed into raw materials for animal and pet feeds. Used cooking oil contains high amounts of protein that will beneficial in animal feed.

Further, used cooking oil can be used to make soap, lubricants and many other useful products.

With these other products, companies that process used cooking oil have a range of products to get to the market to ensure that they remain afloat profitably.

Alternative source of energy for small businesses

Many small businesses have adopted the use of biofuel that is produced from recycled used cooking oil. This helps them save on high energy costs by using it to power some of the processes that use electricity and other expensive sources of energy.

Conclusion

There are many biofuel producing companies that use used cooking oil as part of their raw materials. I have outlined why it is beneficial not only to biofuel producers, but also to the end users of the biofuel that comes from it.

Why Organic Food Practices Will See A Boom In Coming Years?

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Organic foods are going to take off and see a boom in the coming years. The food industry is ready for it and it is time for more people to switch to organic produce.

When you start swapping your everyday foods with organic varieties, you will not just see a change in your health status, but it will also be beneficial for the environment. Here are some of the reasons why the organic food industry using food ERP software is going to take off very soon. Click here to know more about industry-specific ERP software for your business.

growth of organic food industry

1. Digital Awareness Is At An All-Time High

With most people equipped with smartphones and the internet, it is easy to find information about sustainable food practices and the benefits of going organic. Many e-commerce companies work as a sort of facilitator for the growth of the organic industry with people having easy access to such food products.

There is also quite a bit of competition in the food industry which is set to grow. This is a good thing from the point of view of consumers.

2. Price Difference Insignificant

Yes, organic foods may indeed be a bit expensive but the price difference is not significant. Overall, the health benefits that one would expect from organic foods are more compared to the higher price.

food-waste-college

Organic food is a modern, healthy part of a sustainable lifestyle.

3. Going Sustainable

As people move towards a more sustainable world, many practices are becoming common. This report shows how people want to learn how to live more sustainably. Whether it is choosing to buy pre-loved clothes or moving to organic foods, it is all about trying to reduce one’s carbon footprint as much as possible. It is about being sustainable in practices and that translates to food. When one chooses organic produce, it becomes easier to follow sustainable living.

4. A More Natural Way Of Living

People who are inclined to live a more natural way of life or give their bodies more natural foods can take on organic food practices with ease. Organic products are grown without the use of pesticides and chemicals and are therefore less harsh on the body. They are grown following more natural principles of farming.

sustainability-food-supply-chain

Why ERP Helps The Organic Food Industry

With food ERP software, the organic food industry can enjoy a lot more efficiency every step of the way. From production to sales, everything can happen in a more streamlined fashion. Here are reasons why using a food ERP system can help this particular industry:

  • Everything that is happening is in the software. This makes tracking the whole process from organic farming to the end consumer easier and more efficient.
  • With an ERP it is possible to make sure there is little or no food wastage. Organic produce usually has a short shelf life and it is difficult to keep up supply with demand. With this technology, it becomes easy to do so.
  • The reduction of the carbon footprint of the organic food company also becomes easier when food waste is contained.

Is Aquaculture the Answer to World Hunger?

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Feeding a growing world population could become problematic, but aquaculture might hold the key. If humans are anything, we are resourceful. We see a problem with the world, and we do what we can to fix it.  When being nomadic and following food sources was no longer sustainable, we solved the problem by developing agriculture.  Currently, as the population continues to grow and our taste for seafood increases, we’re trying to find ways to meet demand and, at the same time, sustain wild populations of fishes.

aquaculture-fish-farms

Aquaculture is the answer to this current dilemma. Farming fish for food has been around since about 2000 B.C. Since then, technology has helped it advanced and developed better techniques to raise fish for food.

Benefits of Aquaculture

Fish is a great source of protein, and it also contains essential minerals including potassium, zinc, iodine and magnesium. Fish are also rich in phosphorus and calcium. For a healthy heart, the American Heart Association recommends eating fish twice a week.

The health benefits of fish are more than enough reason to eat them, but they are also a delicious meal. There is a large variety of fish to choose from, including freshwater and saltwater varieties. However, the increased amount of people eating fish has had an impact on wild populations. To prevent certain species from being overfished, it is important to find an alternative to providing fish to people, and that includes aquaculture.

Different types of aquaculture must be used to raise different species of fish. Large companies can engage in aquaculture on an industrial scale with fish held in tanks or in pens in lakes, ponds or even the ocean. Families can even perform aquaculture in their backyard.

The variety of fish that you can raise for food includes catfish, bait minnow, trout, carp and tilapia, among others.  It’s also possible to raise shellfish, including oysters and shrimp. Want to try your hand at growing water plants?  You can also use aquaculture principles for water chestnuts and red and brown algae.

Studies have shown that marine aquaculture has the potential to produce 16.5 billion tons of fish per year, which is more than enough to feed the growing population and meet nutritional needs.

Different types of aquaculture must be used to raise different species of fish.

Different types of aquaculture must be used to raise different species of fish.

In some areas, such as parts of Africa, aquaculture has made an enormous impact on the local community’s economy and employment as well. The food produced helps to sustain Africa’s growing population and provides local jobs with steady income.

The Downside of Aquaculture

While it has the potential to feed hungry communities and contribute to local economies, there are some problems associated with aquaculture. Having too many fish in a tank can lead to the spread of disease.  Also, the type of feed the fish eat can impact how healthy they are for humans. Keeping fish in pens in lakes, ponds or the ocean might cause the spread of parasites to wild populations.  Farmed fish could also escape their enclosure and, as a result, alter the natural ecosystem.

Recognizing the shortcomings of aquaculture is the first step to remedying its problems. As technology and farming practices advance and techniques improve, it’s possible that we will resolve many of these issues. This will lead to greater benefits for the human population that depends on fish for food.

Humans have the ingenuity and drive to make the world a better place for themselves and others. Population growth isn’t going to slow down any time soon, and we need to make sure everyone is taken care of and has enough to eat. While aquaculture has its pros and cons, it can be a sustainable and economic way to feed hungry people.  In time, it may even be the answer to world hunger.

15 Simple Ways You and Your Family Can Save the Planet

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Life, the miracle of the universe, appeared about 4 billion years ago, and we, humans – only 200,000 years ago. But we have already succeeded in destroying the balance that is so important for the life on Earth. What do we actually know about life on Earth? The tenth part? Or maybe the hundredth? Earth is a real miracle. Life remains a mystery.

Trees grow towards the sun, which feeds their foliage. Animals are adapted to their pastures, and their pastures are adapted to them. As a result, everyone wins. Animals satisfy hunger, and plants flourish again. In this great life journey on Earth, each species has a particular function and takes a certain place. There are no useless creatures. They are all balanced.

And Homo sapiens – a man of sense – enters the arena of history. He received a fabulous inheritance that the Earth has carefully preserved for 4 billion years. He is only 200,000 years old, but he has already changed the face of the world. Despite his vulnerability, he captured all the habitats and conquered the territory like no other species before him. Today, life – our life – is only a link in the chain of countless lives following one another on Earth for 4 billion years.

For a long time, the relationship between people and the planet were fairly balanced and resembled a natural and equal union. Now, we rarely think about global issues, being lost in everyday concerns. Meanwhile, we are on the verge of a disaster. Thanks to the achievements of science and technology, people learned to satisfy their needs, but some inventions brought us much more harm than good. We are killing our planet gradually but purposefully.

Planting more trees and vegetation will go a long way in reducing heat in urban settings.

Only by changing your habits quite a bit, you and your loved ones can make the world cleaner and safer. These 15 simple tips do not require you either time or extra effort, but can make a difference in saving the world:

  1. Make the most of natural ambient light. Turn off the light in the room or the computer monitor when you do not need it. And do not forget about the chargers in the appliance receptacle!
  2. Teach yourself to turn off the water at a time when you do not need it – for example, while brushing your teeth or rubbing the pan with a detergent. On average, according to statistics, 5-10 liters of water (depending on pressure) flows out of the tap per minute. Also, reduce the time spent in the shower for 1-2 minutes.
  3. Replace incandescent bulbs with LED lights: they save energy and last longer.
  4. Change to a bike. It is cool, fast, and comfortable. Having tried only once, you no longer want to get on the “hot bus” or spend time stuck in traffic jams. In addition, a bicycle is an excellent vehicle as it does not pollute the air with dangerous gases.
  5. Use phosphate-free detergents. On the Internet, there are many resources offering ecological household chemicals.
  6. Buy less plastic bags, go to the store with your eco-bag.
  7. Replace plastic with paper and glass. If you cannot do without disposable tableware – for example, when going on a picnic – use paper plates and cups rather than plastic ones. Purified water from under sink reverse osmosis system is the best alternative of plastic bottled water.
  8. Choose cosmetics and chemicals especially carefully. You should give preference to products that have not been tested on animals and do not adversely affect the environment at different stages of production.
  9. Though it is as simple as ABC but very effective – try to bring plastic, glass, and paper for recycling.
  10. Bring batteries to special shops and institutions because this is a dangerous and very toxic type of waste.
  11. Refuse semi-finished products. Experts say that today, the manufacture of these products is fully controlled by monopoly companies that abuse antibiotics, overload the ecosystem, and apply the principles of intensive management for their own profit. Of course, in such conditions, quality suffers. Homemade food is much better. Do not know how to cook? A dating site may be helpful.
  12. Buy local food – the one that is made in your area. This food undergoes less chemical treatment which is sometimes used for long-term transportation.
  13. Use water filters. In this case, you do not need to spend money on bottled drinking water. Thus, you will not only save your family budget but also reduce the environmental impact caused by the production and transportation of plastic bottles.
  14. Plant flowers on window sills and trees in the courtyards. Do not let anyone cut down green spaces near your house.
  15. Support environmental organizations and encourage your family to do it.

“Orbiting Earth, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it!”

– Yuri Gagarin

Role of Food Waste Disposers in Food Waste Management

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Food waste is a global issue that begins at home and as such, it is an ideal contender for testing out new approaches to behaviour change. The behavioural drivers that lead to food being wasted are complex and often inter-related, but predominantly centre around purchasing habits, and the way in which we store, cook, eat and celebrate food.

food-waste-management

Consumer Behavior – A Top Priority

Consumer behaviour is a huge priority area in particular for industrialised nations – it is estimated that some western societies might be throwing away up to a third of all food purchased. The rise of cheap food and convenience culture in recent years has compounded this problem, with few incentives or disincentives in place at producer, retail or consumer level to address this.

While it is likely that a number of structural levers – such as price, regulation, enabling measures and public benefits – will need to be pulled together in a coherent way to drive progress on this agenda, at a deeper level there is a pressing argument to explore the psycho-social perspectives of behaviour change.

Individual or collective behaviours often exist within a broader cultural context of values and attitudes that are hard to measure and influence. Simple one-off actions such as freezing leftovers or buying less during a weekly food shop do not necessarily translate into daily behaviour patterns. For such motivations to have staying power, they must become instinctive acts, aligned with an immediate sense of purpose. Click here to see what steps you can take to tackle this issue. The need to consider more broadly our behaviours and how they are implicated in such issues must not stop at individual consumers, but extend to governments, businesses and NGOs if effective strategies are to be drawn up.

Emergence of Food Waste Disposers

Food waste disposer (FWDs), devices invented and adopted as a tool of food waste management may now represent a unique new front in the fight against climate change. These devices, commonplace in North America, Australia and New Zealand work by shredding household or commercial food waste into small pieces that pass through a municipal sewer system without difficulty.

The shredded food particles are then conveyed by existing wastewater infrastructure to wastewater treatment plants where they can contribute to the generation of biogas via anaerobic digestion. This displaces the need for generation of the same amount of biogas using traditional fossil fuels, thereby averting a net addition of greenhouse gases (GHG) to the atmosphere.

Food waste is an ideal contender for testing new approaches to behaviour change.

The use of anaerobic digesters is more common in the treatment of sewage sludge, as implemented in the U.K., but not as much in the treatment of food waste. In addition to this, food waste can also replace methanol (produced from fossil fuels) and citric acid used in advanced wastewater treatment processes which are generally carbon limited.

Despite an ample number of studies pointing to the evidence of positive impacts of food waste disposer, concerns regarding its use still exist, notably in Europe. Scotland for example has passed legislation that bans use of FWDs, stating instead that customers must segregate their waste and make it available curbside for pickup. This makes it especially difficult for the hospitality industry, to which the use of disposer is well suited.

The U.S. however has seen larger scale adoption of the technology due to the big sales push it received in the 1950s and 60s. In addition to being just kitchen convenience appliances, FWDs are yet to be widely accepted as a tool for positive environmental impact.

Note: Note: This excerpt is being published with the permission of our collaborative partner Be Waste Wise.

6 Best Alternatives for Plastic Wrapping and Packaging

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There’s no denying that plastic wrap has been a convenient product in most households for many years. However, as most waste disposal companies will tell you, its convenience is only for you – not the environment. It stops your sandwiches from going stale, but it also takes centuries to break down. Your one sandwich wrapper could be responsible for killing a myriad of animals while it sits there waiting to lose its structural integrity. Fortunately, there is a better way.

Read on to discover many eco-friendly wrapping and packaging materials that could end up being better for the environment. Thanks to modern delivery services like healthy food delivery in Miami Dade we’re able to get meals wrapped in sustainable packages.

1. Glass Containers

One of the many reasons why people want to make the switch from plastic is because it can take centuries to break down. However, so does glass, so why use it? Unlike plastic which tends to lean toward being a single-use product, glass is something you can have forever. It’s one of the longest-lasting materials and will prove to offer no end of convenience.

In most cases, you can use glass containers in your fridge, freezer, microwave, and even oven. You couldn’t do that with most plastic products. Glass containers are also an excellent alternative for plastic in almost every way. You can put your unwrapped sandwiches in them and seal the lid shut. You can also put leftover dinner into them for reheating later.

Glass containers are even something you can take to the grocery store. Instead of a supermarket filling a plastic container with their deli items or bulk groceries, you can fill your glass jars. One product can end up having many uses, saving thousands of plastic wrap rolls and containers from requiring waste disposal.

2. Mason Jars

Mason jars have been around since the 1850s, but it’s only in recent years there has been a resurgence in their use. As consumers come to realize that plastic is not environmentally-friendly, they are starting to use sealable mason jars that serve a whole variety of purposes. Cafes are using them for beverages, and you can even use them for serving at home. What’s more, there’s nothing wrong with using them for produce, soup, grains, and more. Move aside plastic; there’s a new player in town.

3. Parchment Paper

If you are trying to minimize how much rubbish you send away to catering bins, then consider swapping your cling film for parchment paper. Wax or parchment paper is an excellent alternative, while also breaking down far quicker than plastic wrap. It will still keep your sandwiches fresh, but with a much less detrimental impact on the environment.

4. Bees Wrap

Bees wrap is a relatively new product to hit the market, but it’s already making waves. It consists of cotton muslin cloth dipped in beeswax, tree resin, and jojoba oil. When you heat them with your hands, you’re able to seal food within. Both the jojoba oil and beeswax are also antibacterial which can offer exceptional benefits with preservation.

When you have eaten your sandwich, you don’t need to worry about impacting waste disposal. You can clean the wraps and reuse them.

5. Cardboard

Many countries around the world have banned single-use plastic bags, with New Zealand the latest nation to join the movement. It will only be a matter of time before waste disposal businesses notice the dramatic impact in plastic waste. That’s a good thing – but how will people package their goods, or carry their groceries? Cardboard is about to become far more popular than it is now.

Instead of packaging your items in plastic, you can store them neatly in cardboard boxes. They break down into the environment, are effortless to stack, and you can use them more than once.

6. Go Nude

For the sake of waste disposal, why not consider going nude? We don’t mean take all your clothes off, but why not avoid packaging altogether? Grocery stores are not making this process easy with the number of plastic-wrapped items they have, but you can be more conscientious about the purchasing decisions you make.

Put your vegetables and fruit in cloth bags and your loose bulk bin items into glass jars. Instead of buying pasta, rice, and other ingredients in plastic packets, buy them from bulk stores that encourage you to bring containers to put them in. If you can’t seem to avoid plastic, then draw up a meal plan that differs from what you usually do. You can then make an effort to eat food that will not arrive in packaging.

Conclusion

People used to cope without plastic for packaging and wrapping, and they can do so again. Think of the effects of waste disposal and how you can stop your contribution to the growing problem. Use glass jars and containers, buy ingredients in bulk, and stop using plastic wrap for your sandwiches. These might seem like small changes, but when 7.7 billion people follow suit, we can make a significant difference.

Biogas from Kitchen Waste at Akshaya Patra Foundation

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The Akshaya Patra Foundation, a not-for-profit organization, is focused on addressing two of the most important challenges in India – hunger and education. Established in year 2000, the Foundation began its work by providing quality mid-day meals to 1500 children in 5 schools in Bangalore with the understanding that the meal would attract children to schools, after which it would be easier to retain them and focus on their holistic development. 14 years later, the Foundation has expanded its footprint to cover over 1.4 million children in 10 states and 24 locations across India.

Akshaya-Patra-Kitchen-BioGas

The Foundation has centralised, automated kitchens that can cook close to 6,000 kilos of rice, 4.5 to 5 tonnes of vegetables and 6,000 litres of sambar, in only 4 hours. In order to make sustainable use of organic waste generated in their kitchens, Akshaya Patra Foundation has set up anaerobic digestion plants to produce biogas which is then used as a cooking fuel. The primary equipment used in the biogas plant includes size reduction equipment, feed preparation tank for hydrolysis of waste stream, anaerobic digester, H2S scrubber and biogas holder.

Working Principle

Vegetable peels, rejects and cooked food waste are shredded and soaked with cooked rice water (also known as ganji) in a feed preparation tank for preparation of homogeneous slurry and fermentative intermediates. The hydrolyzed products are then utilized by the microbial culture, anaerobically in the next stage. This pre-digestion step enables faster and better digestion of organics, making our process highly efficient.

The hydrolyzed organic slurry is fed to the anaerobic digester, exclusively for the high rate biomethanation of organic substrates like food waste. The digester is equipped with slurry distribution mechanism for uniform distribution of slurry over the bacterial culture.

Optimum solids are retained in the digester to maintain the required food-to-microorganism ratio in the digester with the help of a unique baffle arrangement. Mechanical slurry mixing and gas mixing provisions are also included in the AD design to felicitate maximum degradation of organic material for efficient biogas production.

After trapping moisture and scrubbing off hydrogen sulphide from the biogas, it is collected in a gas-holder and a pressurized gas tank. This biogas is piped to the kitchen to be used as a cooking fuel, replacing LPG.

Basic Design Data and Performance Projections

Waste handling capacity 1 ton per day cooked and uncooked food waste with 1 ton per day ganji water

Input Parameters                      

Amount of solid organic waste 1000 Kg/day
Amount of organic wastewater ~ 1000 liters/day ganji (cooked rice water)

Biogas Production

Biogas production ~ 120 – 135 m3/day

Output Parameters

Equivalent LPG to replace 50 – 55 Kg/day (> 2.5 commercial LPG cylinders)
Fertilizer (digested leachate) ~ 1500 – 2000 liters/day

Major Benefits

Modern biogas installations are providing Akshaya Patra, an ideal platform for managing organic waste on a daily basis. The major benefits are:

  • Solid waste disposal at the commercial kitchen site avoiding waste management costs
  • Immediate waste processing overcomes problems of flies, mosquitos etc.
  • Avoiding instances when the municipality does not pick up waste, creating nuisance, smell, spillage etc.
  • Anaerobic digestion of Ganji water instead of directly treating it in ETP, therefore reducing organic load on the ETPs and also contributing to additional biogas production.

The decentralized model of biogas based waste-to-energy plants at Akshaya Patra kitchens ensure waste destruction at source and also reduce the cost incurred by municipalities on waste collection and disposal.

akshayapatra-kitchen

An on-site system, converting food and vegetable waste into green energy is improving our operations and profits by delivering the heat needed to replace cooking LPG while supplying a rich liquid fertilizer as a by-product.  Replacement of fossil fuel with LPG highlights our organization’s commitment towards sustainable development and environment protection.

The typical ROI of a plug and play system (without considering waste disposal costs, subsidies and tax benifts) is around three years.

Future Plans

Our future strategy for kitchen-based biogas plant revolves around two major points:

  • Utilization of surplus biogas – After consumption of biogas for cooking purposes, Akshaya Patra will consider utilizing surplus biogas for other thermal applications. Additional biogas may be used to heat water before boiler operations, thereby reducing our briquette consumption.
  • Digested slurry to be used as a fertilizer – the digested slurry from biogas plant is a good soil amendment for landscaping purposes and we plan to use it in order to reduce the consumption of water for irrigation as well as consumption of chemical fertilizers.

Innovative Technologies to Help a Start-Up in Beverage Industry

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For businesses trying to make a name for themselves in the beverage industry, the challenges are vast and varied. Yes, the sector can be a profitable one – it’s predicted that the global market will be worth $1.86 trillion by 2024 – but that does not mean there are any guarantees of success.

There are a wide range of difficulties facing start-ups of all kinds, and being able to make an impression within the drinks industry is certainly no different. Of course, not every enterprise will start out hoping to become the next Coca Cola, Heineken or Starbucks, but having a solid business plan and a clearly defined set of goals is likely to offer a greater chance for success.

Also Read: Step-by-Step Guide to Launch Your Small Business

Part of that planning involves identifying which tools and processes are going to help your organisation compete against its rivals. Advances are being made all the time, but which technologies might be most effective in launching a beverage business. Read on to know more:

tech-in-beverage-industry

1. Flow-through systems

Automated systems can prove invaluable in terms of streamlining the processes of sorting, packaging, labelling and distributing produce. Flow-through systems utilise robots to do the vast majority of this work, using proximity sensors in order to detect the presence of other objects and repeat the same movements. Operating in this way can help to reduce the risk of human error while simultaneously lowering running costs and increasing productivity and efficiency.

2. Industrial Internet of Things

This is where devices in an industrial setting are connected on a network in order to communicate with one another. The IIoT can enable machines involved in the manufacturing process to log data and identify any faults in the production line, which means each drink is turned out to a greater level of consistency.

3. Voice technology

Another development that is assisting beverage businesses – and those in other industries – is the emergence of voice technology. Warehouse operators can now harness this concept to issue voice commands that will be picked up by the relevant pieces of machinery, which subsequently carry out the action. This means tasks can be completed in a safer, more time-efficient manner, while it also makes training of new employees easier in that there are fewer manual skills for them to learn.

4. NFC tags

Moving away from the manufacturing side of the business, near field communication (NFC) tags can help to improve the customer experience once the product has been put to market. NFC technology is what’s used in contactless payment devices, and the concept has been adapted by the beverage industry in order to add another dimension to the product that consumers purchase.

They can be added to the label or packaging and scanned with a smartphone to unlock a range of additional information about the drink.

5. Cloud service

For businesses in any field, the challenge of data storage is one that can be difficult to overcome. Giants of the industry will have the available resources to own and run their own infrastructures, but others may not be in a position to do so or may wish to focus their spending in different areas.

As a solution, there are cloud service providers who offer products such as Virtual Desktop or Azure Virtual Desktop with rented access to certain software at a lower cost, which frees up funds for beverage companies to commit more capital towards the likes of R&D, production and marketing.

The Role of Bioengineering in Sustainable Food Supply Chain

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Every year, the production of food around the world accounts for almost a third of all global emissions of greenhouse gases. Deforestation, grazing livestock, and the use of fertilizers all contribute to climate change. Finding ways to minimize the damage that food production causes is becoming a priority in the fight against global warming. In addition, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization has estimated that every year, the world produces enough food waste to feed 2 billion people.

To address these problems, the field of bioengineering has found ways to recycle scrap food, reduce the amount thrown away, and find alternative ways to produce sufficient food to feed the world more sustainably and with less waste.

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Engineering Sustainable Food

A degree in bioengineering, or a masters in biomedical engineering online, involves the study of a range of scientific fields from computational biology and physiological systems to mechanical engineering and material sciences. This multidisciplinary approach lends itself well to improving the sustainability of food production. For many years, the genetic engineering of plants has created the potential of increasing production in a sustainable and environmentally-friendly way, and more recently, progress has been made in creating synthetic meat.

Now, without the use of genetic engineering, biomedical engineers have created the first bioprinted steak from cattle cells. The qualities of real meat are replicated by allowing living cells to grow and interact in the same way as they would in nature. The result is the creation of an authentic-tasting steak produced without the extensive environmental damage caused by farming livestock.

Converting Food Into Fuel

Every year in the US alone, 80 billion pounds of food is thrown away without being eaten. An increasing number of scientific projects are working on harnessing the valuable energy from food waste and converting it into renewable fuel. This can then be used to power a range of vehicles from privately owned cars to planes and trains.

In communities where food waste is collected along with other recyclable materials, anaerobic digestion can also be used to convert the high fat content of food waste into green electricity, which is put back into the grid to power households.

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Reducing Food Waste

Some food scraps are unavoidable, but now bioengineering is being applied to reduce some of the waste from over consumerism. Shoppers often buy excess food and leave fresh fruit and vegetables to go mouldy before they are eaten. Using plant derived-technology, the protective peels of fruit and vegetables can now be enhanced, allowing them to stay fresh for triple the amount of time of regularly grown produce. As the freshness of the products is protected for longer, the logistical costs of a strictly controlled refrigerated supply chain are reduced, and in the long-term, food waste is minimized.

As it exists at the moment, the food supply chain is environmentally damaging. From growing meat in a lab to extending the lifespan of fresh food, bioengineers are now finding ways to improve sustainability in food production.