Graf Creamery Optimizes Wastewater Operations with U.S. Water

Graf Creamery, a Midwestern butter and cream production plant, was experiencing issues with the fat and grease build-up in their holding cell retention pond. The fat build-up was restricting their ability to manage the wastewater leaving the plant and the solids had the potential to fill up the ridge and furrow absorption wastewater process.  Due to the fat build-up, they were also losing treatment capacity (maximum holding cell capacity of 100,000 gallons) and during summer months the holding cell would emit foul odors due to the septic conditions of the cell operations.

Since the creamery runs six days a week and wastewater totals average 15,000 gallons per day, the plant needed to come up with a solution to first remove build-up, which would increase operational capacity – as well as prevent additional build-up from occurring in the holding cell.  In previous years, Graf Creamery had trialed a competitive treatment without success, so there was some initial hesitancy when the topic of bioaugmentation was discussed with U.S. Water.