Case StudyPineapple Juice Factory

Background of the Company:

Pine Delight (Pvt) Ltd., is a Sri Lankan company that processes pineapples to produce bottled pineapple drink for the local and export market. Members of Mr A B C Rosairos family and their close relatives own the company. The Board of Directors comprises Mr Rosairo as chairman and Managing Director, his two sons Rohan and Dilhan looking after production and marketing respectively and Mudith functioning as Financial Director.

The marketing has been negotiating for export orders for the last two years and a German food chain market has agreed to give a trial order to the company. However, they have insisted that company should gear themselves for ISO 14001 certification and HACCP certification even to supply a trial order. In addition the buyer has requested company to obtain the services of a consultant to carry out an Environmental Audit and submit the report to the buyer for assessment.

The company purchases its pineapple from a local planter on day-to-day basis. The sugar is purchased weekly. The factory uses coconut water from a desiccated coconut mill about 25 km away and the coconut water is transported by a company owned bowser daily in the evening and stored in a refrigerated storage tank in the premises for use next day. The company purchases 50,000 bottles at a time with other required packaging material such as labels, corrugated boxes and polythene. The furnace oil for the boiler is purchased regularly in 6600 litre bowser loads.

The factory operates six days a week with two 8 hr shifts starting at 6 am and ending at 10 pm. The employees are required to work overtime whenever necessary. Sunday is a non working day but the cleaning of the entire plant is carried out on that day. The total work force in the factory is 54. The average total number of working days per annum is about 300.

Production Process:

The production process in the making of the fruit juice is as follows

The company processes 10,000 fruits per day in 10 batches.

1) The peeling department sorts the bad fruits and then peels the good fruits. (Average weight of the peel is 270 grams/fruit).

2) Fruits are cut into small pieces (Both these operations are done on a tiled concrete table. The juices from these operations are washed away with lot of water)

3) The pieces are then loaded into a blender, 200 liters of coconut water is added and then crushed.4) The blended mix is then filtered using a press filter.

5) The remaining solids are reloaded into the blender, 100 liters of coconut water is added and re blended.

6) The mix is again re filtered. The total weight of the remaining fibre is 3320 kg per day. Lab tests showed that the disposed fiber has 17% juice in it.

7) The juices from both blending operations are collected in a cooking vessel and 60 kg of sugar is added and stirred well until all the sugar is dissolved.

8) The sugar and juice mix is then cooked until the correct specifications are reached. It was found that 20% of the weight is reduced while cooking and it is mainly the water evaporated.

Packing Operation

9) The cooked juice is then allowed to cool and then packed manually as follows

a) The glass bottles are washed in cold water and then washed in hot water at 60 C and then sent through a steam bath upside down to steam the inside of the bottles.

b) The bottles are then filled with pineapple juice manually and then sealed and outside of the bottles are then washed using hot water of about 50 C.

c) The washed bottles are then stored in an autoclave and sterilized at 115 C for 30 minutes.

d) The sterilized bottles are then dried using hot air and then labeled, packed in corrugated cartons and sent to stores.

The Utilities of the Processing Plant:

a) The factory uses electricity to run their electrical equipment and also to have lighting in the factory. The factory is supplied with a 250 KVA, 3-phase electricity. Since their factory is situated in an area with frequent power failures, the company has installed a stand by generator. The generator runs on diesel.

b) The plant has a steam boiler to provide heat to juice boiling and bottle washing. The capacity of the boiler is 1000 kg/hr of dry saturated steam produced at a pressure of 7 bar. (Refer to annex 4 on the details of the boiler and steam distribution system).

c) The factory has a shortage of water and therefore they buy water at 60 cts per 5 liters. This water is used for washing of fruits and machinery and equipment and the floor. The factory consumes about 55 tons of water per day.

Data Gathered:

The company upon request has disclosed following data to the environmental officer.

Input

Total pineapple purchased per day 10,000 fruits at average of Rs.15/- per fruitAverage weight of a pineapple 1.2 kilogramsSugar consumption 60 kg per batch at Rs.30,000/= per M/TonCoconut water purchased at Rs.500/= per days requirement and transport cost Rs.700/=.Electrical Consumption 6,200 units and the total bill comes to about Rs.84,000/=.

Losses

Weight of Peel 270 grams per fruitJuice washed away 78 grams per fruitJuice in fiber 17%Total fiber for the day 3320 kilogramsSpillages of juice 32 liters per batchEvaporation loss during boiling is 20% of the total weightBottle Breakage 150 per day

Output

Bottles removed to finished goods stores 800 Nos of 750 grams each per batch

General Data

Sale priceRs.80/= per bottleLabour costRs.5/50 per bottleOverheads Rs.6/10 per bottleCost of solid waste removal Rs.1,500/= per dayCost of operating wastewater treatment plant Rs.3,500/= per day.

Exercise:

Draw the process flow diagram for the operations of the plant, conduct a material balance quantifying each waste stream and find out the total loss of resources and its cost.

Note: Confine your assessment only to material and water flows.

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