July/August 2021 - 14

SUSTAINABILITY
FOOD WASTE
Reducing potato waste
PAIR OF CHIP MAKERS TAKE
DIFFERENT APPROACHES WITH
SUSTAINABILITY IMPROVEMENTS
By Zeke Jennings
Editor
AS SUSTAINABILITY CONTINUES to grab a larger share of
public attention, food producers are meeting the challenge by
coming up with new ways to get more out of available resources.
Potatoes, one of the most processed vegetables in the
world, emit starch when cooked. When processing a vast
amount, like at a potato chip factory, all that starch has
to go somewhere.
At Better Made Snack Foods, which has been located on
Detroit's east side since 1940, that starch used to go into the
city's sewer system. In the early part of the 21st century,
things started changing, however.
" The Great Lakes Water Authority started looking at
what corporations were putting into the sewers, since
they had to remove all that stuff, " said Phil Gusmano, vice
president of Better Made and a 25-year employee of the
company. " They'd look at what you were putting in and
then charge you accordingly. Well, our water bills kept
going up - more accurately, our sewage bills - so we
had to figure out ways to mitigate those. "
Better Made began scouting around for a centrifuge system
to remove the starch from wastewater before it exited the
factory back into the water system.
" Starch is actually really finicky as both a liquid and a
solid, " Gusmano said. " It's a complicated product to remove
from water. If it sits too long, it turns to a solid. ... It has a
tendency when it gets hard to almost get like cement; it's
really hard to clean out of places if it's not done correctly. "
Gusmano added that moving it too quickly also leads to it
being difficult to handle.
" We kind of knew we needed a centrifuge, so we just
contacted different companies, " he said. " We would send
them small samples of the wastewater for proof of concept
and they were able to recommend which would work for us. "
The system went into place " about eight years ago, " Gusmano
said. Today, it removes roughly 6,000 pounds of starch daily.
While success was found on removing starch - and therefore
mitigating sewage bills - the chip maker still had to dispose
of it, but that's where things really got good for Better Made.
The excess starch from Better Made's operation actually
proved to be quite desirable for the select companies that
utilize starch for other purposes.
" They actually use it as a coating on potatoes to give
them that crispiness, like those seasoned fries or crispy
14 JULY/AUGUST 2 0 21
 Processing potatoes leads to excess starch in water. When sewage bills
started to rise at Better Made Snack Foods, the team invested in a
centrifuge system to separate the starch before it goes back into the
water system. Photo: Better Made.
fries, that's actually potato starch that's been applied to
the outside, " Gusmano said.
Most of the starch is sold to producers of other potato food
products, but in recent years Better Made has developed a
partnership with MichiGrain, a Lansing, Michigan-based
distillery that uses the starch to make potato vodka.
While rising costs sort of forced the company's hand to alter
its production system, the end result has been a good one.
" It's a really great way of taking something that was
waste and turning it into a revenue generator, " Gusmano
said. " It's a great opportunity to keep things out of landfills
and goes to that green manufacturing line of thinking: do
more with less and help the environment while doing it. "
Perfectly imperfect potato chips
Not only do consumers want visually pleasing produce,
the U.S. Department of Agriculture has long had grades and
standards that food producers have had to meet for approval
to reach the market. Below-grade produce is a major cause
for food waste, noted Morgan Santoro of Dieffenbach's
Potato Chips in Eastern Pennsylvania.
" Each year more than 6 billion pounds of produce goes
unharvested or unsold for aesthetic reasons, " Santoro said.
" Too much of ugly produce goes unused and is plowed back
into the earth or ends up in landfills. "
July/August 2021

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