It is a precious asset that is now at the heart of battles. With global warming, the issue of water raises many concerns. Hit by an unprecedented drought last summer, Brittany seems to have discovered that it too was not immune to a shortage. Faced with this risk, many voices are raised in the region to denounce the impact of the food industry on water resources. In Liffré, near Rennes, the frozen pastries factory project carried out by the Bridor group is the subject of fierce disputes, opponents denouncing “its astronomical water consumption”, of the order of 200,000 m³ per year. Ditto in Plouisy near Guingamp (Côtes-d’Armor) where the Norwegian group Smart Salmon plans to build a factory capable of producing 8,000 tonnes of salmon per year.
A heavyweight in the regional economy, the food industry, which employs more than 70,000 people in Brittany, does not hide the fact that its activities are very greedy. “We consume a lot of water because the facilities have to be cleaned regularly for health reasons,” points out Nathalie Le Clézio, environment manager at Entremont. Subsidiary of the Sodiaal cooperative, the cheese manufacturer swallows on some of its five Breton sites up to 2,000 m³ per day, the equivalent of a city of 13,000 inhabitants. In its giant factory in Lamballe (Côtes-d’Armor), Cooperl, the French leader in pork, consumes 530,000 m³ per year.
Reduce, reuse and recycle
Colossal quantities of water that manufacturers have been trying to reduce for several years. “We know that we have to make our businesses more sober and do better with less,” says Marie Kieffer, general delegate of the Breton Association of Agri-Food Businesses (ABEA). Since the end of 2019, this lobby has set up a working group called “Clean Water Collective” which advocates a 3R approach (reduce, reuse and recycle). Omnipresent in Brittany, the dairy industry reuses, for example, water from milk as a substitute for drinking water for outdoor cleaning operations or for washing trucks. The Cooperl also does the same thanks to a regeneration station that treats industrial water.
Actions that have reduced water consumption by a few percent. “But we are at the limit of what is feasible to reduce”, assures Vincent Videau, head of industrial risk management at the dairy giant Laïta. The solution for them involves the development of the Reuse, a solution already in place in several European countries and which makes it possible to reuse treated wastewater. On this subject, French regulations are currently very strict for agrifood companies. “We can only use drinking water in the food process, to clean the production lines for example”, specifies Clothilde d’Argentré, head of environmental projects within the ABEA.
A saving of several million m3 of water
So many regulatory obstacles that are about to be lifted. In his water plan presented last week, Emmanuel Macron has indeed paved the way for better use and recovery of wastewater with a target of 10%, against less than 1% reuse today. “Either 300 million m³, the equivalent of the consumption of 3,500 bottles of water per French person per year”, advanced the Head of State. Long awaited, this announcement was of course welcomed by the food industry. “It’s a common-sense measure that will allow us to go even further in reducing our consumption,” stresses Marie Kieffer.
According to a study conducted by the ABEA on 28 industrial sites in Brittany, the lifting of regulatory barriers on the Reuse should save “more than 2.5 million m³ of drinking water each year, i.e. the equivalent of 1,000 Olympic swimming pools”. Gathered within the Atla, the players in the milk sector estimate the savings at more than 16 million m³ each year, including in this figure the 5 million already reused. But before getting started, manufacturers will have to wait for the publication of the decree which will detail in particular the entire health surveillance protocol. “We will have to let the administrative time pass but in any case the companies are ready”, assures Clothilde d’Argentré.