For protein processors, carcass washing on the harvest floor is one of the plant’s biggest offenders when it comes to water usage. Carcass wash cabinets can pump out as much as 350 gallons per minute as they remove bone dust, loose tissue, and other soil. That’s about 336,000 gallons a day in a two-shift plant!
It can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to bring water into a carcass wash cabinet, heat it, and treat the waste water. Plus, many facilities have introduced an antimicrobial step into the process, adding diluted peracetic acid, lactic acid, or bromine to the carcass wash, which further increases a plant’s cost of operation.