Innovation, Technology Transfer Tools for Improving the Competitiveness of SMEs

David Napper

Finding ways of helping Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) has often been discussed among EFFoST members. David Napper was appointed chair of a special interest group working on some models in order to understand which measures could be taken to proactively contribute to their development.

One of the first promising models came from a small company in Denmark. They had used technology from another branch to recover pulp fibers in a paper recycling plant. The recovery of the pulp fibers allowed the plant to put the fibers back into production and sell them as product instead of paying for the organic load to be processed in the local waste water treatment plant (WWTP). This reduced the consumption of additional chemicals needed to treat the pulp.

The positive results from this model prompted the regional environmental authorities to suggest that the special interest group visit another small local company. The new company slaughtered chickens and wished to expand its production. The potential expansion created several problems. The WWTP serving the plant did not have the capacity to treat the additional quantity of organic material that would be produced. The company needed to determine whether the benefits that would be accrued from additional employee expansion outweighed the costs that would be created in enlarging the capacity of the WWTP.

Representatives of the special interest group visited the slaughter facility and a number of details came to light:

1. The company was using around 1000 m3 of water per day. They were not attempting to reclaim any of the energy being used to heat or chill the water. This was partially because of a legislative barrier that would require them to pay the tax on the energy even if it was saved.
2. The company purchased chemicals for DKK 2000 per day to pre-treat the organics in the processed water in order to reduce their cost of WWTP processing.
3. The company paid DKK 1200 a day to have the chemical sludge produced in the pretreatment process (28.8 tons) trucked to a biogas plant.
4. The company had a related facility that used some slaughter byproducts to make animal food.
5. During the consideration for plant expansion the plant management had studied the legislative requirements with which they would have to comply. They did not realise that new EU requirements were on their way.

An active member of EFFoST who had worked on hearings and activities related to food sector environmental impact discussed the changes with them and suggested several solutions. The first, to analyse the upcoming changes in local legislation (Hygiene Resolution 852/853) and identify what changes would affect the company. It turned out that the resolution gave the company the chance to reuse/recycle water in specific circumstances. They would have room to begin reclaiming some of the used water.

In the second step methods were identified that would gather the organic materials in the plant at the points where they entered the water process and were uncontaminated. This made them available for profitable use as pet food, fats for energy, and a number of other products.

Finally, with organics removed, energy recovery would be made easier because the heat exchangers would not be as susceptible to fouling. The project would be more efficient, cost-effective and productive upon implementation of the recommended changes.

However, not long after the recommendations were made bird flu scares greatly reduced the production of the facility. This meant that the expansion plans were no longer realistic. Nevertheless, the efforts were not lost. The recommendations that had been considered were reevaluated for the fish processing industry. In the fish processing industry only 40% of the fish that entered a local facilities processing plant was coming out as product. The other 60% was reduced to either low value mink food or a direct cost of production. This occurred despite the loss of valuable other byproducts and omega 3 fatty acids in the leftover fish parts.

The technologies that were considered for the reduction of chicken by-products have been applied to the fish sector in cooperation with the existing value chain actors serving associations of small production facilities. Relevant food authorities have approved the methods and it appears that the recommendations set forth by the special committee will have a beneficial impact in this sector. Rubin (http://www.rubin.no/eng/), an organisation that works for more profitable utilisation of fisheries and fish farming by-products in Norway, estimates that sector profitability can be increased fivefold if the value of the byproducts is realised.

David Napper is Managing Director, Euroteknik Ltd, Husbands Bosworth, Nr Lutterworth, Leicestershire LE17 6LZ, UK; E-mail: dn@eseparator.com