Greenyard, a supplier of fresh, frozen and prepared fruits and vegetables, has upgraded a cooling tower at its production plant in Bree which will reduce water use by over 50 million liters or five percent per year.

At the Greenyard Prepared plant, water is used to wash, process and pack vegetables in jars or tins, and the reduction in water use comes from the optimization and repurposing of clean water flows.

These water savings equate to the average annual water consumption of 1630 people, according to the press release.

"Greenyard has explicit sustainability objectives and is committed to consistently taking responsibility, on its own initiative, to increase the sustainability of the entire food chain, and its own production processes," Dominiek Stinckens, Managing Director of Greenyard Prepared said.

“There must be constant communication with suppliers, the people at the company, our customers and of course the people around us."

Along with water-saving processes, the cooling tower was upgraded with low-noise motors and air inlet fans equipped with anti-pollen filters.

"Taking all these factors into consideration is a big gain for us: we reduce our water consumption, boost sustainability and create an operating process that emits less noise to the surroundings."

How does it work?

This process works because a cooling tower is a heat exchanger; when water comes into contact with air, it cools in different stages.

During the heat treatment process, the vegetables in jars and tins are first heated to a temperature of 120 degrees Celcius, then cooled to 40 degrees Celcius.

The modifications made to the cooling tower mean that 50 million liters of water can be reused for this cooling.

The hot water, which is of drinking quality, then returns to the production process and can be used in the pouring department and for vegetable blanching. Water that is cooled to 40 degrees is also recirculated in the production process, or used for other purposes.