Bottled Water Filtration: The Demand for Quality Grows
The global market for bottled water is big and still growing rapidly. In the hunt for fancy new flavors or unique health benefits, manufacturers might be missing the biggest opportunity — ensuring consumers get the full value of their product thanks to high-quality bottled water filtration and quality control (QC) testing.
This article is posted on our Science Snippets Blog
With bottled drinking water being a massive market across the globe and only showing signs of growing further, the race is on for manufacturers to take, maintain and even increase their share. Especially in the fast-growing category of premium waters that provide higher value and greater profit.
That was certainly the standout message from the 19th Global Water Drinks Congress that took place in November 2022 in Evian, France: how players will capitalize on the opportunities will differ from region to region, brand to brand, and where their focus lies. Some will focus on purity, others will look to go for classic taste, new distinctive flavors, energy, or health benefits.
But no matter where manufacturers position themselves and their products to serve this global market, one thing unites them all: the need for reliable, effective filtration processes to ensure a consistent quality of water during production, and quality control methods verifying the process and finished bottled water is within compliance, as well as meeting the needs of their customers.
Supplying a high-quality, consistent, clear, and enjoyable end-product with a long shelf-life can be a challenge. Many factors come into play such as the inconsistency of water as a raw material depending on the source and season, how you transport water to the production site, the risk of contamination during production, compliance with regulations and being as sustainable as possible.
In this blog post, we’ll break down the challenge into its different parts — and give you some pointers to where and how you can make improvements that will help you deliver the full value of your products to a market thirsting for more.
Inconsistency of water as a raw material
Filtration steps are needed to remove the undesirables from spring or municipality source water. Whether these are biological undesirables or chemical elements like ammonium, arsenic, boron, bromide, fluoride, iron, manganese, nitrate, organic matter, volatile organic compounds, and pesticides.
These undesirables will vary season to season, and year to year. Although routine testing may be conducted, having in-house testing helps to ensure that any variations will be detected. For microbiology testing, use the Microsart® manifold, Biosart® Funnels and Nutrient Pad Sets. This combination will be able to detect the microbial contamination that you are concerned about. In addition to microbiology testing, analytical testing using wet chemistry techniques, HPLC and even IR can be conducted. Having the appropriate Minisart® Syringe filter and an Arium® Lab Water system ensures accurate analytical tests. All of this data can be combined to help determine the prefilters and filters needed to achieve high-quality drinking water.
Prefilters with a range of pore sizes can be used to remove the undesired particles with varying degrees of densities. Such as the Jumbo Star system or standard filter cartridges like Sartopure® IND. While another solution is to use membrane filter cartridges designed for finer filtration such as Aquasart® PS product range.
Not only is filtration important to keep track of and optimize production, but the filtration cartridges themselves are easy to set up and maintain. And, most importantly, filtration is neutral for water with migration tests performed to ensure no introduction of particles like plastics, taste or odor.
Transportation of water to production site
Water is transported on site by piping or in a tanker car. But either way, taking water from one location to another can pose a challenge for bottlers.
Pipes made from cast iron, galvanized steel, clay, and PVC can shed these inferior materials into the water as well as being a breeding ground of bacteria in the form of a biofilm, especially as they age. Instead, pipes within a bottling plant should be constructed of high-quality stainless steel to minimize that risk. Bottling plants also need to minimize the introduction of particles to the water during pumping, tank storage and on-loading or off-loading.
Prefiltration filters such as Sartopure® IND and Jumbo Star Technologies can help here as they are able to remove particles of various sizes. While the ability to backwash these polypropylene materials with clean water or soda water to regenerate the filters means 6-12 months between change outs and lower operating costs.
Preventing contamination during water production
When the water environment changes from the well or spring source to dedicated storage tanks, exposure to the air can lead to microbiological contamination. The best way to monitor the air is using the Airport MD8 air sampler with either BACTair™ Culture Media plates or Gelatine filter plates. These plates or filters can then be analyzed for any microbiological contamination.
In addition to air monitoring, highly hydrophobic filters can help to provide clean sterile air from compressed air or outside air using Aerosart® filters. Sartorius has a complete portfolio of venting filters to support you in sizing the right filter solutions.
Production equipment itself also needs to be steam sanitized. However, steam generators used within a facility should be equipped with downstream filtration to ensure particle-free contents. A sintered stainless-steel filter, Sartosteel is designed for this very purpose.
In addition, proper venting of the storage tanks and filter housing should occur using sterile hydrophobic filters such as Aerosart. The Jumbo Star Sartopure® GA cartridge is designed for special reservoirs and storage tanks with a high air flow and particle capacity.
The below charts show an example of how your bottled water manufacturing plant process workflow may look like, and examples of applications and products.
Figure 1. Process Flow Chart for Your Water Process. The workflow may not exaxctly represent your workflow in your bottled water manufacturing, however it generalizes the QC checkpoints.
Figure 2. Water Production Process – Applications & Products
Compliance with water quality regulations
Around the world, there are different regulations to observe in bottled water filtration and QC testing. These safety and quality standards often go beyond the usual levels for most other foods. For example, bottled water is one of the few foods where the FDA has developed specific cGMP (Current Good Manufacturing Practice) regulations (21 CFR part 129) and with a very detailed quality standard (21 CFR §165.110[b]). These are in addition to the cGMP regulations (21 CFR part 110) for foods in general which also apply to bottled water.
The key is to use suppliers who are experienced and follow the regulations as a priority. All Sartorius filter cartridges are designed and manufactured according to an ISO 9001-certified quality management system. All raw materials which are used to produce the cartridges are in accordance with EU regulation 1935/2004/EC or are listed in the Regulations (EU) No. 10/2011 relating to plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with food.
With all used materials meeting FDA requirements, Sartorius raw materials comply with the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 174 – 182; specifically, CFR 177.1520, CFR 177.2440, 1CFR 77.2600, and CFR 178.3297
Last but not least: Sustainability through smart water management
Taking responsibility for the planet and water as a precious resource, manufacturers can take important steps to reduce the impact on the environment. One way is to limit the loss of water by recycling and re-using as service water in the production plant. Each liter that is not bottled can be used as service water after filtration. Similarly, water used for rinsing the bottles can be reused online after filtration to rinse another set of bottles during the day.
Another concern is where the water comes from, and it is important to ensure there is no adverse social and environmental impact harvesting water from a particular region or community. As for the filtration products themselves, 100% polypropylene filter cartridges can be recycled and transformed into bags or energy depending on local regulations. For further reading into how manufacturers can make their processes more stable and environmentally conscious overall, our Sustainability white paper can offer valuable insights.
In summary, the bottled water market shows a clear trend upwards and will continue to provide manufacturers and their brands many exciting opportunities. But taking and making the most of those opportunities demands security and confidence in the quality and shelf-life of the end-product — and that starts with consistent water quality throughout production. Good manufacturing and laboratory practices using reliable, cost-effective, compliant, and sustainable filtration technologies are therefore key to delivering full value to your consumers at the same time as preserving valuable water resources.
Learn More About Water Filtration
Follow us on Sartorius Food & Beverage LinkedIn
