Wastewater Treatment: A Slow Churn Opportunity
Key Highlights
- Large food brands are integrating wastewater treatment into their core manufacturing strategies, emphasizing water reuse and environmental responsibility.
- Innovative solutions like biogas conversion and recycled water in beverages demonstrate new revenue streams and sustainability benefits.
- Emerging examples, such as using treated wastewater for cooling data centers and producing beverages from recycled water, showcase the industry’s innovative potential.
As far as environmentally friendly initiatives go in the food & beverage processing space, wastewater treatment-focused ones can vary significantly in size, scope and level of concern for the company or plant involved.
At the larger end of the scale, you have global companies like Barilla, Lamb Weston and Pilgrim’s Pride, among others, committing significant resources to improving water reuse and wastewater management. On the other side are companies that have yet to fully commit to improved wastewater solutions.
However, says Amielle Lake, chief commercial officer for CarboNet, the tide appears to be turning a bit. “The wastewater role at a plant has typically not been on the revenue side; they are usually on the cost side,” she says. “Now, wastewater is finally getting a platform it should have had all along, which is, what we do and how we choose to manage this really does matter to the business’ bottom line.
In March, Barilla reaffirmed its commitment to multiple sustainability goals, and responsible reuse of water was among those highlighted. At the company’s Rubbiano plant in Parma, Italy — which produces sauces and pesto — improvements made to wastewater treatment and implemented advanced water recycling solutions resulted in the recovery of more than 16 million gallons (62,000 cubic meters) of water between 2022 and 2024. Barilla is continuing to invest in improvements in water efficiency across its facilities, the company says.
In reporting its 2025 fiscal results and 2026 outlook last July, Lamb Weston publicized its plan to invest $100 million (or about 20% of its expected capital expenditures) on “environmental projects largely focused on wastewater treatment” at its production facilities.
Going back to January 2025, Pilgrim’s Pride announced its Sumter, S.C., poultry processing facility would partner to convert methane and biogas from the facility’s wastewater streams into “pipeline quality” renewable natural gas (RNG).
Although Sumter isn’t the first and won’t be the last, meat and poultry processing plants for years now have been finding new ways to convert waste streams into cleaner, better and even revenue-improving options.
In fact, while that’s just a sampling of large food & beverage companies implementing wastewater initiatives, Lake says CarboNet is beginning to see a shift toward more companies understanding the benefits of treating wastewater.
“For the large national brands, wastewater treatment is absolutely part of their manufacturing strategy, and they're building wastewater treatment programs as they're building the plants or upgrading them,” she says. “With mid-tier brands, we see a lot of talk about treating the wastewater because we are also seeing a conversation around how really high their municipal fines are.”
Getting started and advancing
With food & beverage companies landing all over the spectrum on wastewater treatment, it can be tricky to offer any one-size-fits-all advice. For plants that are sending their wastewater out and leaving it to municipalities to handle, step one is obviously to begin treating the wastewater onsite first. Once that process has been nailed down, Lake says the next step is to really dig in and apply science to improve the outcome.
“Step two is to do it responsibly, looking at the chemistry you’re applying and new technology that can help reduce chemicals,” she says. “There are also systems that can automate dosing, which can really contribute to cost reduction but also to environmental responsibility, going as ‘green’ as you can and using as little as you can.”
That includes looking ahead at long-term trends. CarboNet has been working to help processors become aware of polyacrylamide (PAM), which is an inexpensive, extremely effective polymer used as a flocculant to bind the solids in wastewater, making them easier to remove. PAM then stays with the solids, which often are land-applied as a fertilizer. This process has worked well, but environmental concerns over PAM have begun to arise, meaning processors should consider alternatives.
Additionally, processors should look for novel ways to extract more value from the wastewater effluent produced by the facility. While not directly tied to a food & beverage facility, a Memphis, Tenn., data center built in 2024 by Elon Musk’s xAI company to house the Colossus supercomputer (that powers the Grok chatbot) is cooled by wastewater from the city’s wastewater treatment facility right next door — removing the need to tap into the city’s drinking water supply. xAI pays the city for the wastewater, which is treated but not to drinkable standards.
Looking for a more food/beverage-applicable inspiration? Consider the November 2025 commercial launch of Shower Hour IPA and Laundry Club Kölsch, two beers developed by Epic Cleantec and Devil’s Canyon Brewing Co. They’re made with “highly purified recycled water from showers and laundry,” according to a release announcing the products. The beers use water from buildings where Epic, a water reuse technology company, operates advanced onsite reuse systems.
“The water is cleaned with modern, state-of-the-art technology to ensure it’s exceptionally pure,” the company noted.
Maybe your plant’s products wouldn’t lend themselves to this sort of … inventive … use of wastewater. However, treating it on-site, mastering that process and then digging into the details can help the bottom line. Then maybe the company will see wastewater treatment as less of a negative cost and more of a value-creating investment.
About the Author
Andy Hanacek
Senior Editor
Andy Hanacek has covered meat, poultry, bakery and snack foods as a B2B editor for nearly 20 years, and has toured hundreds of processing plants and food companies, sharing stories of innovation and technological advancement throughout the food supply chain. In 2018, he won a Folio:Eddie Award for his unique "From the Editor's Desk" video blogs, and he has brought home additional awards from Folio and ASBPE over the years. In addition, Hanacek led the Meat Industry Hall of Fame for several years and was vice president of communications for We R Food Safety, a food safety software and consulting company.