Golden Flake Snack Foods’


Onsite Wastewater Treatment Facility Eliminates Municipal Surcharges with New


Membrane Bioreactor System


Jim McMahon, Zebra Communications, jim.mcmahon@zebracom.net, www.zebracom.net


The membrane bioreactor (MBR) system, designed and built by ADI Systems Inc., treats up to 400,000 gallons per day of raw snack food wastewater using advanced membrane bioreactor technology for liquid-solid separation, reducing suspended solids and biochemical oxygen demand to less than 2 milligrams per liter, eliminating $100,000 per month in municipal wastewater surcharges, and releasing 250 gallons per minute of treated, filtered, oxygenated water into the local watercourse ecosystem.


Golden Flake Snack Foods (Golden Flake) located in Birmingham, Alabama was faced with a tough decision, either come up with a solution to stem the escalating municipal wastewater surcharges it was being assessed, or move its 300,000 square-foot snack food processing plant out of the county to stem the significantly rising costs. In 1998, the plant was paying $800 to $1,000 per month to Jefferson County in surcharges for decanting its 100,000 to 350,000 gallons of wastewater into the county’s municipal sewer system. By 2008 that figure had escalated to $100,000 per month in surcharges for the same daily discharged wastewater flow rate, with county projections that the rate would most likely raise to $250,000 per month within the next five years.


Given the fact that 68 percent of Golden Flake’s 250-plus work force lives within a 13-mile radius of the plant, the company preferred to keep it 80-year-old headquarters and main manufacturing facility in Birmingham, and find a solution to reduce or eliminate the surcharges. This meant, in essence, getting off of the county sewer system.


The Alabama Department of Environmental Management, which sets standards for wastewater regulations within the state, made it clear that if Golden Flake could reach prescribed TSS (total


suspended solids), BOD (biochemical oxygen demand), NH3-N (ammonia-nitrogen) and DO (dissolved oxygen) concentrations, it could receive a discharge permit to convey treated effluent directly into a creek that runs along the perimeter of its property, and bypass the Jefferson County sewer system altogether.


Golden Flake’s Wastewater


The Golden Flake plant manufactures and distributes a full line of snack food items, including potato chips, tortilla chips, puffed corn, corn chips, cheese puffs, cheese curls, onion rings and pork skins. Port skins are its specialty, producing over a dozen varieties such as Louisiana Hot Sauce Pork Skins® Pork Skins®


, and Wash Pot Style Pork Cracklins®


, Hog Hides .


Golden Flake sells more pork skins in the southeastern United States than any other company.


It is also well known for its extensive line


of potato chips, which is the product that Golden Flake was founded on in 1923. Dill Pickle Thin & Crispy Potato Chips®


, and Southern Heat Dip Style Potato Chips® are highly recognised brands in the southeast U.S.


produces and distributes. The company’s popular brands of Maizetos Tortilla Chips® Rounds®


are a few of the 15 varieties it , and Tostados Mini


In 2009, Golden Flake’s Birmingham facility processed more than 20 million pounds of snack foods totaling $120 million in sales, 95 percent of which was distributed within 12 southeastern states.


The plant’s production mix of potato chips, corn chips and pork skins can vary, causing the raw


ADI-MBR system at Golden Flake, showing the pre-aeration tank (right), pre-cast concentrate membrane tanks and aeration blowers (center), and operations building (left). The operations building houses the electrical systems, PLCs, sludge dewatering system, pumping systems, laboratory and office. The entire footprint of the MBR system including the operations building is 140 ft. by 60 ft and treats 400,000 gpd of raw wastewater.


snack food wastewater to have varying strengths and consistencies, with flow rates ranging from 100,000 to 350,000 gallons per day (gpd).


All of the plant’s wastewater handled through its on-site wastewater treatment facility comes from the production of snack foods (no sanitary sewage enters this system), mainly from the processing of potatoes and corn. From their arrival on site, the potatoes are carried in a water flume to be peeled and sliced. The slices are then washed and put through deep fryers before being packaged. The flume and wash water is drained daily and discharged for onsite wastewater treatment.


Raw corn, for the production of corn and tortilla chips, is cooked in kettles with water and lime to loosen and remove the husks, then soaked in vats to increase the moisture content of the kernels. The kernels are then washed to remove impurities, milled, sheeted to run through ovens, deep fried and packaged. The water from these processes is discharged after use for onsite wastewater treatment.


Pork skins arrive at the plant in pellet form and go straight into deep frying, then seasoning and


packaging. The plant has seven deep fryers that handle its various product types. The majority of the spent cooking oil is trapped in an oil pit and removed before entering wastewater treatment. But the fryers do need to be boiled-out weekly contributing to the wastewater stream.


Raw snack food wastewater is pumped through vibrating screens which collect 15,000 to 20,000 pounds per week of large food particles. This organic matter is collected and transported upstate to be used as animal feed.


From the time the facility was originally built in the 1950’s, the pre-screened wastewater leaving the plant was received at a primary clarifier (for primary sludge settling) with supernatant discharged to the county sewer system (Golden Flake is permitted to release up to 400,000 gallons of wastewater per day). The stagnant wastewater in the primary clarifier was not aerated or covered and would produce off-odors. The clarifier was located along the edge of a street, where subsequently a housing development had been built, and the odor was becoming an issue with residents.


“The wastewater being decanted to the county sewer system had BOD and TSS concentration levels in the thousands, exceeding maximum surcharge levels” says David Jones, Executive Vice President of Operations for Golden Flake. “As our surcharges continued to escalate, we began looking for a treatment technology that could not only handle our high-volume peak flows of 350,000 gpd, but also produce an effluent that was below the Alabama Department of Environmental Management’s maximum allowable discharge concentration limits for BOD, TSS, NH3-N and DO.”


www.pollutionsolutions-online.com • February / March 2011


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