More efficient mushroom canning through pinch and exergy analysis

Conventional production of canned mushrooms involves multiple processing steps as vacuum hydration, blanching, sterilization, etc. that are intensive in energy and water usage. We analyzed the current mushroom processing technique plus three alternative scenarios via pinch and exergy analysis. The product yield, utility use, exergy loss, and water use are used as sustainability indicators. Whilst re-arrangement of the production process could maximally save up to 28% of the heat input and up to 25% of the water usage, the most important improvement is obtained by re-using blanch water, which improves the overall yield of the preservation and canning process by 9%, also saving water and exergy use in the production.