Industry focus
Water is an ingredient, a cleaning agent and a brand risk on one site. SANS 241 potable water, clean steam, CIP and effluent reuse — engineered as one programme, with the records to prove it.
In food and beverage, water is not a utility — it is an ingredient, a cleaning agent and a brand risk all at once. The water that touches product must meet SANS 241. The steam that touches process must be clean. The CIP system must actually sanitise. And the site's biggest cost pressures — municipal tariffs and effluent charges — are both water numbers.
No other sector has this many water problems on one site, which is why it is the sector where a single accountable treatment partner earns its keep fastest. Prosep runs process water treatment and full-site water programmes across South African food and beverage plants as part of more than 300 sites served nationally.
What we bring
From the water in the product to the effluent leaving site — one accountable team across all of it.
Where water touches product or people, SANS 241 is the reference — source treatment, disinfection, and the monitoring records that prove compliance the day an auditor or a retail customer's technical team asks.
Cooking, sterilising and CIP heating — feedwater, internal chemistry and blowdown control, with RO feedwater proven on a side-by-side trial before you commit.
Condenser circuits and cooling towers carry the refrigeration load — and a Legionella risk the sector can't afford. Managed to the principles of SANS 893.
Clean-in-place performance is water chemistry: hardness affects detergent performance, and disinfection must match the soil, the materials and the contact time the plant can actually give it.
Expensive to discharge, valuable to reuse. At a Randvaal food producer we recycle around 907 kl a month of treated effluent for domestic reuse — water paid for once, used twice.
Proof
Three ways we cut the municipal draw — reverse osmosis, rainwater harvesting and effluent reuse — each still running today.
Process water — reverse osmosis
Alternative supply — rainwater harvesting
Effluent reuse
Brand protection, stated plainly
It is a product recall, a retailer delisting, or a name in the news. The defence is not heroics, it is routine: programmes with stated targets, engineers who sample, dose, monitor, report, and come back, and records that prove the plant was in control.
The programmes
Potable water, steam, cooling, CIP and effluent — engineered programmes priced against scope.
RO, softening and alternative supply — SANS 241 where it counts.
View serviceClean steam for cooking, sterilising and CIP heating.
View serviceRefrigeration condensing with Legionella control.
View serviceDischarge compliance and reuse — cost to resource.
View serviceSANS 893 risk control on cooling and evaporative systems.
View serviceClean-in-Place chemistry and the water quality behind it.
View serviceDrinking-grade water for product and people.
View serviceUse the water twice; cut the bill and the discharge.
View serviceStandards we work to
Where water touches product, SANS 241 governs and the monitoring records matter as much as the water itself. Cooling-system Legionella risk is managed to the principles of SANS 893 under the OHS Act, and effluent against DWS discharge requirements. Behind those records sits the dosing and monitoring equipment that holds each setpoint, with flocculation and clarification carrying the solids load at the front of the effluent plant — and where a site treats its own domestic sewage, a packaged sewage plant completes the water circuit. The same food-safety discipline runs through poultry and agriculture processing.
FAQ
Start with a water balance, then attack the biggest draws. Prosep has done this three ways for food and beverage clients: a 4.5 m³/h reverse osmosis plant for a Cosmo City food producer (2020), rainwater harvesting storage for a Heidelberg beverage producer (2023), and recycling of around 907 kl a month of treated effluent for domestic reuse at a Randvaal food producer (2022). All three remain operational.
Where water touches product or is used for potable purposes, SANS 241 is the governing standard, and the monitoring records matter as much as the water quality itself. Prosep designs programmes against the standard and builds the proof into the routine reporting.
For appropriate duties, yes. At a Randvaal food producer we engineered treated effluent recycling for domestic reuse, around 907 kl a month, flushing toilets on site. The duty defines the required quality; the treatment is designed to meet it, with monitoring to prove it holds.
Through a managed programme working to the principles of SANS 893: risk assessment, a designed biocide regime, routine microbiological monitoring and documented records, with the paper trail an OHS Act inspection or insurer audit expects.
That is Prosep's model: treatment chemicals, dosing equipment and on-site engineering sold as engineered programmes across the whole site water circuit, priced transparently against scope, from one accountable team.
Potable water, steam, cooling, CIP and effluent — one accountable team, programmes priced against scope, with the records that protect the brand.