The Food Industry is a complex, global collective of diverse businesses that supplies most of the food consumed by the world population. Only subsistence farmers, those who survive on what they grow, and hunter-gatherers can be considered outside of the scope of the modern food industry.
Food industry produces large volumes of wastes, both solids and liquid, resulting from the production, preparation and consumption of food. These wastes pose increasing disposal and can pose severe pollution problems and represent a loss of valuable biomass and nutrients. Many standard industrial waste treatment texts sufficiently address a few major technologies for conventional in plant environmental control strategies in the food industry. Environmental legislation has significantly contributed to the introduction of sustainable waste management practices worldwide. Considering the challenges in the area of food industry, efforts are to be made to optimize processing technologies to minimize the amount of waste. Food processing wastes have a potential for conversion into useful products of higher value as by product, or even as raw material for other industries, or for use as food or feed after biological treatment. There are many examples of utilizing waste materials from plant material processed by canneries, there are many other types of waste that can be utilized. In many canneries, the organic from the processing system is combined with the other types of non-usable wastes, such as hardware, glass, cans, nails etc. Food industry should also have to concentrate on waste avoidance as well as utilization of process wastes. All the combined efforts of waste minimization during the production process, environmentally friendly preservation of the product, and utilization of by products would substantially reduce the amount of waste, as well as boost the environmental aspect of food processing industry.
