Wastewater Assessment and Implicit Practices to Alleviate Water Issues in Vegetable Soup Making Processes

Food and agricultural industry expend maximum fresh water sources in the world. Unfortunately, Eritrean water resource completely depends on seasonal rainfalls which are inherently uncertain and insufficient due to ever posing global climate change issues. consequently, the country is striving to manage its available limited water sources. In connection, to mitigate with currently challenging water supply problems, a comprehensive water assessment survey carried out for a vegetable soup making process at Barka Canneries, a food processing industry managed by Eritrean Live Stock Corporation. The two-week survey study revealed that the specific water consumption as 8.73 L/kg of soup while wastewater estimated as 8.39 L/kg of soup by leaving 0.3468 L of water in every kg of the soup product. Specifically, vegetable preparations consume about 54 % of total fresh water and generate 72% of total wastes while canning and cooking sections consume 31% and 15%, and generate 25% and 3% of waste respectively. Further, water consumption rates in vegetable preparation section depends on variety of vegetables and their quantities used for the recipe. In addition, there are several choices available to mitigate with currently challenging water supply issues by reusing wastewater for secondary applications.