Meat and poultry processors who want to build a new plant, or build an addition to or remodel an existing plant, face today’s challenge of not only meeting code regulations, but also doing their part to protect the environment we all live in.

Construction of, and on existing, processing facilities provides ownership ample opportunities for designing, engineering and building plants that make the industry more sustainable as a whole. Owners of facilities and construction, planning and engineering teams have many choices to make in the building process, and some they don’t have to make anymore.

“The first thing is you have to understand the owner’s expectations and the intent of their project tied to sustainability,” said Forrest McNabb, president of Big-D Construction headquartered in Ogden, Utah. “For years sustainable just meant, the project can last, can maintain.”

Today, sustainability ties more tightly to environment and “green” construction relative to processing plants.

“So the bar has changed for us over the evolution of time,” McNabb said.

LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a widely used green building rating system developed by the US Green Building Council (USGBC), providing a framework for designing, constructing, and operating sustainable buildings. The LEED system often plays a large role in processing plant construction, and within that system, there are different levels of certification from certified through silver, gold and platinum. The level of certification is based on a point system and the number of points earned throughout the project determines which level the project achieves.

“But No. 1 is to understand the owners’ thoughts and priorities for the sustainability tied to their project,” McNabb said. “Are they seeking LEED certification? Are they seeking best practices? Are they seeking specific types of sustainability like zero waste? Are they thinking solar? Are they thinking of using water or drain water as part of the process tied to landscaping and land application?”

Rooftop solar panels provide clean, sustainable energy throughout manufacturing plants.

| Photo: Big-D Construction

Planning

The biggest part of knowing what the owner wants in terms of sustainability and conveying to them what they must provide to give a builder the ability to deliver comes in the early planning phases. Reducing carbon footprint, minimizing waste and staying on schedule are all designed into the plan before anyone shows up at the site.

“Out there on the site building it, you’re not having a bunch of extra over cuts or wasted steel and the time associated with it and the equipment that it takes in order to do that construction,” said Zach Poss, project manager and senior mechanical engineer, Onsite Energy & Power at Burns & McDonnell, Kansas City, Mo. “If you have your construction individuals working with your engineering individuals, you can build that into the design early on.”

“A lot of our customers use the term design build or EPC (engineer, procure and construct), where the traditional design, bid, build method doesn’t quite lend itself to as much advanced thought,” said Dan Blake, project manager and account manager, Protein Manufacturing at Burns & McDonnell. “When we’re talking about design build methods, it really goes hand in hand with the sustainability because sustainability comes through proper planning.

“Are we going to stick build things or can we look to prefabricate those things that may be part of this process off site? That [prefabrication] speaks to a real increase in productivity through the schedule, as well as dollars saved on things that may be getting disposed of into a landfill, so sourcing sustainable materials from the beginning, using construction methods that minimize construction waste.”

Design-build firms plan projects with built in sustainability with more strength and efficiency when they have the necessary professionals in house. Burns & McDonnell embeds its sustainability experts into a project from the beginning. This allows some owners who might be wary of certain costs involved to get the full scope of the return on investment of sustainability, raising the odds of getting implemented into the project and lessening the impact on the environment.

“Sustainability through design build or EPC is just, quite frankly, more efficient and it does help keep our project on track both with schedule and budget,” Blake said. “And it typically aligns with an organization’s corporate responsibilities, goals with decarbonization and other sustainability commitments.”

Due to building code changes over recent years, a certain level of environmental protection has been implemented into all projects, but owners still want to do their part and go above and beyond to protect the environment. This will often come in the form of LEED certifications. The different levels of LEED range from certified level to platinum level and the cost between them is wide-ranging as well.

Big-D Construction approaches LEED certification at the earliest planning stage of design for its projects and presents the owners with costs across the levels of certification. LEED certification is based on the accrual of points throughout a project, the level of certification increases as the project reaches certain point totals.

“It’s as simple as concrete paving which is white and reflective versus black asphalt,” McNabb said. “It’s something like do you have solar? Would you put solar in there? It’s site coverage, it’s landscaping, it’s all these things that create a sustainable project.”

Big-D addresses these issues with owners first to ensure projects go smoothly and ensure the level of cost stays within an owner’s budget and the work is complete on schedule. To do this, the company employs LEED certification professionals on its staff.

“We have delivered 91 LEED projects ranging from certified level to platinum level and have 50 LEED accredited professionals in our organization,” McNabb said.

Water, water everywhere

Water, specifically water conservation and causing less wastewater, is a fundamental part of meat and poultry processing plants reducing their impact on the environment. One thing Burns & McDonnell has done is look to new processes to replace the traditional ways of doing things that potentially eliminate extra wash cycles.

“A bacon process might utilize a certain style of bacon comb that requires a separate wash cycle,” Blake said. “We may actually look to completely replace that comb by laser cutting the product and in effect, we’ve completely changed the process, and we’ve eliminated a wash cycle as well as conserved all that water that goes along with it. That’s key, just to look at changing the actual process itself.”

The design firm also looks for ways to capture otherwise unused water from any possible sources. Poss gave examples of rainwater and condensate from air handling coils as two possible sources.

Once the water is collected, designers and engineers will figure out the best, most useful place to send it based on the minimal amount of treatment and how to get it there. Water not used for any kind of direct food handling process might be sent to a cooling tower to reject heat through evaporation for lower quality sources. Water reclaimed from condensation on coils is cleaner. The facility might recapture, treat and send it to a boiler to make up steam generation.

“So, we have a lot of different ways that we can use that water once it’s reclaimed, it’s just a balancing act between what will it cost to reclaim that water and how much is that? How much value does that offer? And then where can we send it and use it effectively.”

Poss noted that water reclamation heavily depends on location. The eastern United States has more access to waterways and gets more rainfall than the Southwest, where conservation will be more critical.

“But our clients will often times place a value on whatever that initiative is and place a dollar amount on that to make sure that they’re building in inherent value for that environmental stewardship.”

Water also presents a challenge for builders while the plant is still under construction, even before construction begins.

“The first thing we have to do before we even start construction is provide a SWPPP (stormwater pollution prevention plan),” McNabb said. “Typically, the plan gets approved by the state for any job over an acre site. We file that document with the civil engineers and sometimes we have a third-party help. It says we’re not going to track mud off the site, we’re not going to contaminate the roads, we’re not going to create a dusty environment and any water on our site, this is how it’s going to leave so that we don’t pollute a water stream.”

Facility expansion projects maximize efficiency and minimize environmental impact. 

| Photo: Burns & McDonnell

Energy conservation

Energy efficiency lowers cost of operation, and clean energy lowers effect on the environment, creating a win for processors and sustainability. Currently, more options exist than ever before for builders to conserve energy and use cleaner methods to shrink energy’s carbon footprint.

Solutions range from LED lighting to consolidation of heat and chill sources, trapping steam to create heat and more.

“Heating and cooling utilities for facilities of this size are often centrally produced in a boiler room or a chiller room and then distributed out to the point of use, as opposed to having multiple units spread throughout the facility,” Poss said. “It cuts down on maintenance costs for having somebody that has to go around and maintain all those different pieces of equipment, and it’s bringing all that into a really high efficiency larger machine that might be the size of a semi-truck. Doing that, affords processors the opportunity to take advantage of technologies that are more effective at scale.”

The consistent heating and cooling loads of processing facilities, starting at the same time every day and doing the same thing every day, allow the collection of accurate data and make it easier to pinpoint solutions for accomplishing sustainability goals.

Regulating usage through controls conserve energy anywhere controls can be implemented. For hot water washdown, precise set points and accurate temperature settings can prevent overheating and reduce waste.

“We can utilize scheduling in the logic and programming to actually heat the water when you need it for washdown and then we can modulate those systems down during off peak hours when energy rates are higher and we can reduce costs there,” Blake said. “Controls for refrigeration systems, we can go through and upgrade those, that’s a huge initiative that we see right now on trend in the industry. And we’re really just looking to enhance the energy efficiency by optimizing our compressors through smart compressor control.”

Poss added, “When we talk about latest trends and sustainable processing from the utility side, decarbonization is the name of the game right now or the hot word across a lot of industries. Who knows what that’s going to look like with the change in administration. The legislation that comes down will dictate the actual requirements for decarbonization, but it’s becoming a cost of business as the consumer base is becoming more aware of environmental stewardship.”