The agri-food industry focuses all of its activities on producing, transforming and conserving foodstuffs for human and animal consumption. Water requirements are substantial and its uses are numerous:

• Washing, rinsing and transporting raw materials
• Washing packaging (cans, jars, bottles, etc.)
• Raw material
• Steam production
• Cooking
• Washing production materials
• Cleaning of premises
• Cooling of mechanical equipment
• Etc…

To ensure sustainable food production that meets health safety standards, two types of water treatment infrastructures are implemented:

• A process water production unit ensuring that a sufficient quantity of water is available for carrying out all production operations.
• Wastewater treatment plant to remove pollutants in wastewater before being discharged (municipal network or natural environment)

The reference standard is Water Intended for Human Consumption (drinking water), cited in the French Public Health Code. This standard sets the reference quality for water likely to be in direct or indirect contact with foodstuffs. Some uses require a specific water quality: softened water, water treated by osmosis, distilled water, etc. To meet these requirements Nomado provides solutions that use equipment and consumables approved by regulatory bodies such as ANSES (French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety), the AFSSA (French Food Safety Agency), the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration).

Agri-food wastewater represents 20% of French industrial effluent and generally is heavily loaded with biodegradable organic matter. According to the type of activity, suspended solids (SS) and FOGs are also present in large quantities.
The ICPE items, operating orders and the EU’s latest Commission Implementing Decision EU 2019-2031 of 12 November 2019 urge agri-food and milk industrials of the agri-food sector to achieve better environmental performance.

To reduce releases into water, NOMADO designs and constructs extremely energy-efficient wastewater treatment systems and uses best available techniques (BAT).