In many food processing plants throughout the world, byproducts are generated during the processing of the main ingredient. These byproducts are often disposed of as scrap or animal feed, or sold as a lower-grade food ingredient. Manufacturers are interested in looking at any way to either recycle food waste back into the process or to create new value-added products to generate additional revenue.
The RP Angle Disintegrator® by Bepex International was used to take vegetable fiber trimmings at a rate of 16,000 kg/hr and grind the material into a variety of different products. By varying the main shaft rpm, everything from a coarse grind to a puree was produced from the Disintegrator. The resulting products were either fed to a Bepex S-Press® for the production of high-quality juice. Some of the byproducts were diverted to a Bepex Pulvocron® size reduction system which milled and dried the material into high fiber flour. The resulting flour was sold as a food fiber ingredient for breads, cakes, and cookies as well as additives for soups and drink mixes.
At Bepex’s Process Development Center, the fiber ingredient processes were first developed and optimized for the grinding / pureeing, dewatering and dispersion/drying operations. Following successful testing of the food waste recycling process, small scale production was carried out to provide the customer with samples for feasibility studies and evaluating market feasibility.