Water treatment for soft drinks is very essential. Most beverage companies create their own standards regarding the level of water purity needed for the production of soft drinks. Different companies also use different water treatment methods to treat their water. However, no matter what water treatment methods you use, it is important to invest in methods that meet industry regulations.

Water treatment in the food industry

The benefits of water treatment in the beverage and food industry come from the need to get rid of any microorganisms. To avoid degradation, water in use in the food industry must be of good quality and potable. This involves the absence of any dissolved minerals that harden the water and change its taste.

Most of the fluid in the food industry is made up of product water so it is essential to treat it to meet the desired taste. For high purity, treatment of water further than what is needed to meet potable requirements is required.

The bottling purification process

Bottling of beverages starts with the regular municipal tap water. The water comes straight from the city sources where the plant is located. Tap water is usually drinkable but it has some elements of hardness in it. It also has some deposits of heavy metals from the pipes used to transport it. These elements can distract from the taste. A water solutions company may use reverse osmosis and water softeners to create potable and pure water.

Once the beverage has enough purified water, they will add their unique mixtures of metals, minerals and carbon dioxide. They will also add syrups, sugars and food colouring to create the soft drinks you find in shops.

Once the solution is mixed, it is then packed into bottles or cans and transported to the desired destination. Alcoholic drinks go through a similar process but are typically baked with some form of grain and yeast or fruit added to them to make alcohol. Because of the simplicity of the beverage bottling premises, most companies that make beverages do it in small firms.

The tap water vs. bottled water

Spring water or mountain fresh water comes from the same sources as tap water. However, you may have realised that it tastes better than tap water. Bottled water goes through the same process as soft drinks. The municipal water is purified, making a blank slate for the company to work with, rather than adding sugars, and syrups, bottled water goes through a different process.

Reverse osmosis

This is the foundation of water treatment processes used in the beverage industry. RO systems work by applying a lot of pressure to drive water across a membrane to remove impurities. Due to this pressure, the impurities in the water will arise and cause one side of the special membrane to become more concentrated than the other.

With this water treatment for soft drinks method, only ultra-pure water can pass through the membrane whilst dissolved impurities, which cannot be eliminated by normal filtration are removed by the reverse osmosis process.