October 27, 2014
Nestle opens world''s first water-free dairy plant
Nestle SA, the world''s largest food company, has opened the world''s first dairy plant which will run entirely water-free, Bloomberg reports.
The Cero Agua dairy factory that opened in western Mexico last week is the world''s only zero-water plant, extracting 1.6 million litres of the liquid daily out of cow''s milk it condenses into powder. The new factory will reduce Nestle''swater consumption in Mexico by 15% annually.
With water shortages becoming commonplace from California to Brazil, the company spent 200 million pesos (US$15 million) to build the plant in an existing factory in Jalisco that produces Nido powdered milk. Nestle will export the zero-plant process to its factories worldwide, chief executive officer Paul Bulcke said.
"(Mexico) has a very long dry season so water is a very precious thing in almost all parts of Mexico", according to Bulcke.
From the 1.4 million litres of fresh milk processed each day, Nestle extracts one million litres of purified water using inverse osmosis and other technologies. Water is consumed during the milk factory''s production. 600,000 litres of water are then recycled and treated a second time for non-potable use.
Reusing water from the milk removes the need to extract groundwater for operations. The water savings equals the average daily consumption of 6,400 people in Mexico.
The factory is part of a pledge Nestle announced in January to invest US$1 billion in Mexico through 2018.