Brand new water reuse installation at Alpro

The largest water reuse installation in Flanders

Water is an essential part of production with a vegetable brand such as Alpro. The majority of the water impact is in growing the ingredients, but large quantities of water are also used for cleaning the factories within the framework of guaranteeing food safety. Alpro therefore regards recovering and saving water where possible as an important part of its sustainability strategy. In all factories, waste water is purified and in the last 10 years the water consumption has been reduced per product by no less than 20%. Flanders often has water scarcity during the summer months. Scientists expect that dry periods and other extreme weather conditions will occur more often in our neighborhood in the coming decades. Alpro was looking for ways to optimize the water flows on the site in Wevelgem. This resulted in a collaboration with the water group for the new water reuse installation, good for an investment of 3 million euros.

Eugene Kusse, factory director of Alpro Wevelgem clarified: “Alpro has concluded an agreement with azulatis (then the industry's business unit, ed.) For the construction and operation of a water reuse system on the Wevelgem site, with the aim of production of drinking water quality process water. We consciously choose not to use this water in our products themselves, but in our production processes. The water reuse installation combines various filter techniques such as groffiltration, pipe flocculation or flocculation, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis, which ensures that the water meets the standards for drinking water and in this way reusable in our factory processes. The installation has an initial capacity of 720,000 m³ of water per year, which we can later expand to as much as 930,000 m³ of drinking water per year. That is 372 Olympic swimming pools. In addition, she is designed for a maximum treatment flow of 200 m³/hour with a maximum net production of 140 m³/hour of drinking water. With these figures, the installation at Alpro Wevelgem is the largest water reuse installation in Flanders. Azulatis is responsible for the operation of the water reuse installation, and also takes on the quality follow -up to always guarantee the drinking water quality of the delivered process water. ”

Tailor -made water

Azulatis supplies 'customised water' to companies, including through reuse projects in which we – as here at Alpro – further upgrade purified wastewater to drinking water quality," says Frank De Poortere, interim CEO at Azulatis. "This not only closes the water cycle, but also increases capacity on the drinking water network and reduces pressure on vulnerable groundwater layers. With this project, we are also making a substantial contribution to the objectives of the Flemish government's Blue Deal.