Sitemap

For Innovators

Maximize your potential by joining our global network.
Sign In  ●  Create Account

For Companies

Drive growth through innovation.
Learn more

Introducing SousZen

See how Xinova partners with PepsiCo and Innit to launch the new Seattle restaurant tech startup, SousZen, that aims to digitize ‘back of house’.

Find Out More


Innovation Opportunities

Seeking innovative solutions for:

Innovation Opportunities

Rinse and Reuse

RFT-190115

This opportunity is closed

Xinova seeks a cost-effective way to clean potato rinse water for multiple re-uses in the clean-and-peel process. 

rinse water, R&D, innovation partner, innovation partnership, innovation strategy consulting, business innovation, generate demandBefore becoming chips, potatoes need serious baths: first they’re washed, then their peels are scrubbed off with a high-pressure spray. The resulting rinse water may be reused for cost and sustainability purposes, but reusing water is an expensive and resource-intensive process.

In today’s 4-step process, the potato pieces are filtered out and the rinse water is treated with anti-microbial agents and UV light. Finally, leftover waste products from the cleaning processed must be disposed of, which is expensive. Removing a step or two would reduce costs and could save billions of gallons of water. Solutions must lower microbial loads and entail capital and operational costs below specified limits.

Solutions may involve new chemical additives and devices but should not entail high heat or add regulatory concerns or problematic byproducts.

Background: Potatoes must be cleaned and peeled before they are sliced and fried. Part of this cleaning and peeling process involves high-pressure spraying with water, which creates a slurry of potato peels, dirt and microbes. To minimize waste, much of this rinse water is reused in the cleaning process. However, the water must be sanitized before reuse. The current process for sanitizing potato rinse water is a complex and costly multistep process. Filtering becomes necessary because failure to remove many of the solids will interfere with most sanitization methods. The water can be sanitized without removal of the suspended solids, but the process is cost-prohibitive. Suspended solids negate the effects of UV and require significantly more amounts of oxidizers. 

Why this is valuable: The current process is costly because of its reliance on multiple filtering and sanitation steps. The process also results in a chemical sludge that must be disposed in a specific and costly way. Removal of one or more of these steps will decrease costs and allow more reuse of the rinse water. This could result in over 2 billion liters of water savings. In addition, failure to reuse rinse water is economically and environmentally costly. Fresh water sources are stressed globally. This results in higher acquisition costs and depletes a critical resource.

Does the thought of the amount of water that is wasted from washing vegetables keep you up at night? For most of us, probably not, but that is a problem that lots of Food and Ag companies face every day. The actual process of cleaning vegetables and reusing the water is a tiresome task that not only waste billions of gallons of water, but also requires lots of effort and money. As a result, Xinova is seeking innovative and cost-effective solutions that can make the vegetable cleaning process more efficient and more sustainable.  

This opportunity comes from the efforts of Xinova’s R&D Consulting and Innovation team.

Are you up for the challenge?

Questions?

Watch the Webinar

 


Sign up today to see all our Innovation Opportunities.


Warning: Use of undefined constant rand - assumed 'rand' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/customer/www/xinova.com/public_html/wp-content/themes/uc/single-rfi.php on line 157

Connect with Xinova

We are always seeking new problems to solve, as well as innovators and entrepreneurs to help us solve them. Let’s work together to create the future.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Our Worldwide Locations

USA

Xinova
PO Box #30873
Seattle, WA 98113
USA

Japan

Xinova Japan GK
Yaesu Mitsui Building 6F
2-7-2 Yaesu, Chuo-ku
Tokyo 104-0028 Japan
+81-3-6478-6120
xinova.jp

Korea

Xinova Korea
10th floor, Golfzone Tower
735, Yeongdong-daero
Gangnam-gu
Seoul 06072, Korea
+82 2 6952 8840
xinova.co.kr

Finland

Xinova Finland
Erottajankatu 5 A 4
FI-00130 Helsinki
Finland

Affiliate offices in Tel Aviv & Vienna