PepsiCo’s water stewardship includes converting steam from frying potato chips into drinkable water
Rather, the snack and beverage giant’s success rested on a “bunch of singles and doubles” methodically and patiently won by studying, developing and deploying innovative solutions evaluated through the dual lens of impact and cost, Seitz told attendees gathered at Grundfos’ Sustainability Summit in Lenexa, Kan., last week.
He joked his job would have been easier if he could have leaned into one or two high impact solutions, but he explained that he needed to balance the company’s water reduction efforts with its production requirements to ensure sufficient Doritos and Fritos were on shelf at all times.
Steam captured from frying potato chips saves 60 million liters of water a year per site
Among the dozens of solutions implemented to improve operational water-use efficiency, is recapturing water from potatoes when they are fried to make the company’s iconic Lay’s chips, Seitz said.
He explained the average potato is made up of about 75% to 80% water and the company’s Kolkata factory devised a way to recapture the steam vapor created when the potato slices enter the fryer.
“That steam is the water that is in the potato,” and PepsiCo redirects first as low-grade waste heat to offset thermal processes, and then, after the steam is condensed into water and cleaned, the company returns it to the plant to offset freshwater uses in other processes, Seitz explained.
“On a standard potato chip line, it will be about 14 million gallons of water that we will be able to reclaim and reuse to offset from freshwater use,” he added.
This adds up to about 60 million liters of water per year at a single site, according to PepsiCo.
Membrane bioreactors, improved corn hopper halo washers further reduce use
The company also reduced its freshwater demand by an average of 70% by implementing membrane bioreactor technology at 21 manufacturing sites, including 14 in high water-risk areas. The technology allows the company to purify process water to drinking-level standards for reuse in operations, according to PepsiCo.
By changing the way PepsiCo washes corn to make products, such as Tostitos, Fritos and Doritos, at more than 100 global manufacturing lines with a year, the company could save more than 640 million liters of water annually, Seitz said.
According to the company’s website, its “corn hopper halo washer efficiency solution reduces the time the water is turned on by more than 85% during a phase of the corn-washing process.”
PepsiCo aims to be net water positive by 2030
Even as PepsiCo celebrates its early water stewardship achievements, Seitz said the company is pushing toward its even more ambitious 2030 goal to be net water positive.
PepsiCo aims to reduce water use at high-risk sites to 0.05 gallons per pound of production and 0.5 gallons per pounds of production at non-risk sites, Seitz said. According to PepsiCo, in 2023, its convenient foods manufacturing facilities used about 0.3 gallons of water per pounds of production at high water-risk facilities and 0.68 gallons per pound at non-high water-risk facilities. At beverage production plants, 1.7 liters of water is used in high water-risk facilities and 1.8 liters in non-high water-risk facilities per liter of beverage produced.
To do this the company will deploy a suite of globally proven technology – such as additional membrane bioreactor processes and the potato chip fryer stack energy and water recovery technology, along supplementary tech, including a peeler rinse support module and a zero liquid discharge system at its facility in Casa Grande, Ariz., which Seitz said the company hopes will be its first near zero freshwater plant.
He adds the company is exploring a pipeline of additional technology and keeping an open mind about emerging technology and new solutions.
Knowing that many of the initiatives to reach the 2030 goal have lengthy execution time frames, Seitz said the company is not predicting hockey stick gains, which is why it cannot wait to start.
