The brewing industry is facing increasingly complex challenges. Profitability is under threat from supply chain issues, price increases, and inflation. Every part of the brewing operation has been impacted, from raw materials to water and energy costs, packaging materials, labour and transport. As a result, the market is volatile and less predictable.
Climate change is also creating significant water scarcity, which is leading to staple ingredient shortages. Concerns over climate are also reflected in growing consumer preferences. They have more sophisticated tastes, with environmental awareness informing their expectations of a commitment to explicit sustainable practices from brewers. This, in turn, is influencing consumer purchasing decisions.
The Pressures to Achieve More with Less
Consequently, brewer’s traditional operational efficiency targets are constantly under pressure from the requirement to achieve more with less.
But how can you achieve this, especially when it feels as if you have already considered every possible efficiency?
Reducing water, energy and chemical consumption is now a priority for every part of the brewing process. You need to identify and apply innovations that make key incremental differences. But to maximize this approach requires access to strategic sector knowledge and experience, to ensure you make the most of the opportunities and added value that innovation delivers.
Water Savings – Benchmark and Bottom Line
You need to be increasingly responsive and proactive. Maximising your water treatment program is essential. It’s becoming a key differential – influencing investment, consumer choice, and market success.
Water savings provide a benchmark of your improved operational efficiency and can also deliver a significant contribution toward protecting your bottom line. They also act as a broader indicator of your response to consumer preferences for sustainability. In this case, you are explicitly seen to be doing the right thing by the environment and the future of the planet.
The Impact of Water Scarcity
If your breweries are in countries with scarce water resources, any savings can help contribute to your Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives, and your Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals. By protecting local water sources and the local population, you are protecting your brand reputation.
Soon, water use restrictions are increasingly likely in these countries, which only increases the urgency of sustainably optimizing every drop by reducing, recycling and reusing your process, cleaning, and ingredient water.
In addition, your increasing production demands and sustainability goals require solutions which not only reduce water use, but chemical cleaning requirement, packaging, and wastewater costs. The brewing industry needs to balance all these factors yet maintain the highest standards of hygiene – alongside consistency, reliability and repeatability of results. All achieved without compromise, while simultaneously reducing environmental impact and operational risks.
That’s why it is crucial you make the right choice of innovation in processing and packing that can increase your sustainability and efficiency, reduce the impact on your raw material requirements, transport, and profitability, as well as reduce your environmental footprint.
Conveying Your Packaging Line into the Future
Effective high-speed conveyance of cans, bottles and kegs between filling and packaging machines is one of the most important requirements of running an efficient packaging line. Traditionally, a ‘wet lube’ solution has been employed.
However, this method can be water intensive, having a negative impact on the water/product ratio, resulting in wet, slippery floors in the production area. In the Food and Beverage (F&B) industry 90% of staff slips result from wet or contaminated floors.
It’s a process that also creates other challenges, including the creation of the ideal environment for biological growth. Also, significant numbers of your containers can fall and be wasted during this process. While mechanical components degrade, with the need for frequent replacement and emergency shutdowns.
With all this in mind, if you are using this traditional solution, doesn’t it feel counter intuitive when you are attempting to save resources, and ensure a safer, more hygienic working environment?
A 100% Water-Saving Innovation
DryFormance is designed to replace this inefficient method. It combines 100% water-free conveyor lubrication, with packaging line engineering excellence and sector-specific expertise. It’s combination of distribution system, application method and specially formulated lubricant allows precise control of package/container flow during your packaging process.
Removing the water from your conveyor lubrication cuts common slips from wet and contaminated floors and there is less chemical handling involved to help achieve your health and safety targets. It also improves overall operational efficiency, while helping to meet your sustainability commitments. Apart from the water savings, the combination of no slime on the distribution system and the conveyors – plus no harmful effects to the WWTP – differentiates it from current biocidal lubricants.
Asset Protection and Sustainability
Over time, DryFormance increases your asset protection by extending the lifespan of plastic conveyors by at least 100%, and it also lowers mechanical component degradation. Which means, fewer replacement parts and emergency shutdowns. While the 100% reduction in water used for conveyor lubrication creates an equivalent reduction in effluent load, energy consumption, and the strain on your conveyor motors.
Your sustainability commitments benefit from reduced CO2 emissions, wastewater treatment and recycling, alongside a reduction in chemicals and the need for replacing wasted packages.
Delivering an Additional Health and Environmental Benefit
Some dry lubrication systems designed to help save resources use a group of man-made chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Exposure to these is being increasingly identified as a threat to human and environmental health. Consequently, there is restriction on their use. Teflon, although effective as a lubricant in the beverage industry, is not biodegradable and persists through accumulation in soil, water, and our bodies.
Teflon is in contact with the outside layer of food packages – bottles, cans, and cartons – and is accumulated subsequently on and under conveyors. This requires an expensive and time consuming deep clean protocol that goes downstream to wastewater treatment and to landfill. One of the benefits of DryFormance is that it contains no PFAS substances, helping to reduce risks and deliver operational peace of mind.
DryFormance Put to the Test
The performance of DryFormance has been thoroughly tested in a Global brewer’s packaging hall in Italy. DryFormance was installed on a glass line with stainless steel chains, in an assessment that incorporated two stages. From lower pasteurizer to labeller two in stage one – then from the upper pasteurizer to labeller two in the second phase. It was also applied in the fillers/combiners to pasteurizer, and in the labellers to packers.
Driving Consistent and Improved Outcomes
With zero water usage, the floors remained dry and showing no evidence of lube, while there was no microbiological growth on conveyors and application brushes. In addition, there was no carry-over of lubrication into secondary/tertiary packaging, and no damage or negative effects on any packaging materials that encountered the lubrication.
As a result, bottle handling in the brewery remains consistent, or is improved. Coefficient of friction is controlled within an agreed tolerance range, and there is no increase in motor and gearbox average temperature to extend asset protection.
Delivering Significant Savings and Sustainable Benefits
Another can line to benefit from DryFormance’s innovative technology is located in Tanzania. The Krones line has an output of 24 000 cans per hour. The environmental gains were clear, with clean and dry floors preventing slip hazards and in improved hygiene – with no biological growth on the floors. As for equipment, the conveyors showed no visible sign of wear and tear and no scaling.
Combined savings of wet lubricant, water and effluent were greater than $12,000 per year with a ROI in 36 months. This was reflected in the reduced water/product ratio achieved. Plus there was a significant boost to the brewery’s sustainability aims with DryFomance’s zero water usage.
Innovation That Drives Continuous Improvement and Control
Adopting innovation is part of a process of continuous improvement and incremental gains that can help transform your business for the future. For instance, combining DryFormance with Diversey’s additional innovation expertise – such as its BottleCare Program that will boost the glass bottle appearance by reducing and masking scuffing rings – delivers measurable benefits that create significant opportunities to add value and increase your operational efficiency, with less investment.
You will be able to face tomorrow’s challenges responsibly and with control back in your hands, to reduce costs, improve resource consumption and minimize product waste, while reducing your total cost of ownership (TCO). This will help you create a competitive, sustainable brewing business that protects your workforce, your consumers, and the Earth without compromising trust in your primary asset – your brand.
