MSU Students Help Dairy Facility Stabilize Wastewater Treatment: ProFood World

What does it take to fix an unstable wastewater treatment system at a facility processing 2.9 billion lbs of milk a year?

Michigan State University's Anaerobic Digestion Research and Extension Center partnered with MWC, a Michigan cheese and whey protein plant, turning the challenge into a capstone project for biosystems engineering students. Together, they diagnosed fluctuating pH levels and declining sludge activity, developed a strategy to stabilize operations, and are now working toward a fully circular water system at the plant.

This is an AI-generated episode. Read the full featured article on ProFood World.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Through the Line, the podcast exploring innovations and information across the packaging and processing landscape. From topics impacting consumer packaged goods and healthcare packaging to the latest technologies in food processing operations.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Hi, I'm Casey Flanagan, Associate Editor with Pro Food World. This AI-generated podcast episode covers a collaboration between Michigan State University and Dairy Processor MWC to stabilize wastewater treatment at the company's facility. It details how student-led research revolved microbial instabilities to ensure consistent operation for a plant that processes billions of pounds of milk per year. We also explore the future of this partnership as the two work together toward a circular water system.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Imagine you have just built a state-of-the-art $25 million facility. The hardware is completely flawless, the engineering is top tier, and the capital investment is fully secured.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Everything looks perfect on paper.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Exactly. But a few weeks into operation, the entire system is just on the brink of collapse.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

And it's not because of a broken pipe or a mechanical failure. It's literally because you are tracking the wrong numbers on a spreadsheet.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

Which is a nightmare scenario for any plant manager.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

Truly. So today's deep dive explores how a major Michigan dairy processor actually resolved these critical wastewater treatment instabilities and how they advance toward a circular water system through strategic collaboration with university biosystems engineering students.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

Yeah, we're focusing this analysis specifically for you, the packaging and processing professionals listening, to really examine the operational challenges at MWC. And that scenario you just described, that is the exact situation MWC faced.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

So give us some context here.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

Sure. So MWC is this massive cheese and whey protein plant established in 2020.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

It operates as a joint venture between Glambia, Dairy Farmers of America, and select milk producers.

SPEAKER_02 2:01

That's a heavy-hitting lineup.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Oh, absolutely. And the core mission of our discussion today is to really unpack how misaligned key performance indicators or KPIs can completely destabilize massive industrial infrastructure.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

And how marrying that academic theory with actual industrial practice can rescue that infrastructure. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 2:20

Exactly. And ultimately optimize long-term resource management.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

Aaron Powell To truly understand the gravity of the wastewater issue this facility faced, we first have to establish the immense scale and the operational pressure they're dealing with.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

Yeah, the scale is wild.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

In processing and packaging, we're very used to high throughput, but the volume numbers here are just staggering. Can you break down the actual scale of the incoming raw material they're handling at MWC?

SPEAKER_03 2:44

Yeah, so the scale is fundamental to understanding the crisis. MWC processes 2.9 billion pounds of milk every single year.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

2.9 billion.

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Billion. With a B.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

That is I can't even picture that much milk.

SPEAKER_03 2:57

To put that into perspective for the region, that staggering volume accounts for approximately 25% of all milk produced in the entire state of Michigan.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

So a quarter of the state's entire dairy output goes through this one facility.

SPEAKER_03 3:10

Exactly. And when you are processing raw agricultural material at that magnitude, your environmental footprint, particularly regarding wastewater, is immense.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

I can imagine. Yeah. And to manage that impact, they built a highly specialized wastewater treatment system.

SPEAKER_03 3:27

They did.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

The notes show this is a $25 million capital investment.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

Yeah, a massive investment. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

And the whole design intention was to offset their environmental footprint by reclaiming water from the cheese production process, right?

SPEAKER_03 3:39

Trevor Burrus Right. And also protecting the local municipal water resources. You can't just dump that kind of volume into a local system.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Of course.

SPEAKER_03 3:45

So it's this incredibly sophisticated infrastructure designed for a very specific biological load. But soon after the facility opened, they faced these compounding critical issues.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

What kind of issues?

SPEAKER_03 3:57

Specifically, the operators observed wildly fluctuating pH levels in the wastewater system. And this was immediately followed by a severe decline in aerobic sludge activity.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

Aaron Powell Which doesn't sound good.

SPEAKER_03 4:09

It's not. It resulted in just overall inconsistent operation across the entire wastewater treatment infrastructure.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Aaron Powell Okay. I want to pause on those technical terms for our processing and packaging audience. Sure. Yeah. Because in a mechanical packaging line, a failure usually looks like a jammed carton or a faulty ceiling jaw. It's visible.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

You can just walk up and see the jam.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 4:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

But here the system components are biological. So what exactly is aerobic sludge and why does a fluctuating pH cause a multimillion dollar system to just fail?

SPEAKER_03 4:39

Aaron Ross Powell That's the crucial distinction between mechanical and biological systems, right? The aerobic sludge is not waste in the traditional sense. Okay. It is actually the engine of the treatment process.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 4:50

Yeah, it's a highly concentrated, cultivated biomass. It's made up of specific microorganisms.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Okay, so they're alive.

SPEAKER_03 4:57

Very much so. And these microorganisms require a steady supply of oxygen to metabolize and break down the complex organic matter found in dairy wastewater.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Like the leftover fats and proteins.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

Exactly. Leftover fats, proteins, lactose.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

So these microorganisms are essentially the workforce of the wastewater plant.

SPEAKER_03 5:16

Aaron Powell That is a perfect way to put it. They are the workforce. And like any highly specialized workforce, they require very specific environmental conditions to function. They operate within a very narrow optimal pH range. So when dairy wastewater enters the system, the breakdown of those organic milk solids naturally produces volatile fatty acids.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

Okay, acids meaning the pH is going to drop.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

Exactly. If the system is not perfectly balanced, those acids cause the pH to drop rapidly.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

And because the MWC operators were not tracking the leading indicators of this chemical shift, the pH was basically allowed to fluctuate outside that biological tolerance zone.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

Which means your biological workforce cannot survive.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

Correct. The fluctuating pH directly causes a decline in aerobic sludge activity.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

Because they're stressed.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

The microorganisms become stressed or they just die off completely, meaning they can no longer process the incoming organic waste effectively.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Wow. So it just compounds.

SPEAKER_03 6:14

Exactly. It creates this dangerous feedback loop. The waste isn't treated, which further alters the chemical balance, which leads to more microbial instability and ultimately total operational inconsistency.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

This brings us back to the root cause of the crisis, which I think has a really direct parallel to the packaging industry.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Yeah. David Holmberg Jr., who is the maintenance director at Glambia, he stated that they fundamentally were just not tracking the correct key performance indicators.

SPEAKER_03 6:45

The KPIs.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

And we frequently see new automated packaging equipment suffer from what I call KPI blindness during that initial scale-up phase.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

KPI blindness, I like that.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Because you might have a state-of-the-art line, but if you are only tracking, say, machine speed and you're ignoring early warning metrics like seal pressure variations.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

Then you're going to have a problem.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

Exactly. The line will eventually produce compromised product, despite the hardware being totally flawless.

SPEAKER_03 7:10

That is a highly accurate parallel. Because in a biological system, KPI blindness is equally destructive. The hardware of MWC's $25 million system, the pumps, the aeration tanks, the sensors, it was all functioning perfectly.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

It's doing its job.

SPEAKER_03 7:27

But the operators were likely tracking lagging indicators, such as the final effluent quality rather than the leading biological indicators. Like what? Like the chemical oxygen demand or the real-time alkalinity of the influent. And without the right data guiding the operation, the biological process just collapsed entirely.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

And the operational pressure here is vastly different than a standard manufacturing plant where you can simply hit an emergency stop button.

SPEAKER_03 7:54

Oh, completely different.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Matt Vanick, the site director at MWC, articulated the stakes really clearly. The plant operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, year round.

SPEAKER_03 8:03

Never stops.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

Never stops. As Vanick pointed out, the cows do not stop producing milk.

SPEAKER_03 8:08

No, they do not.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

You cannot just pause the supply chain while you troubleshoot the microbial instability in the wastewater system.

SPEAKER_03 8:14

And that continuous operational pressure is really what turns a technical problem into a full-blown supply chain crisis.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

Aaron Ross Powell Because the milk keeps coming.

SPEAKER_03 8:23

Exactly. If the wastewater infrastructure goes down, the processing plant cannot discharge its waste. Consequently, the entire facility must halt or severely curtail its milk processing operations.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

Aaron Powell Which means all that raw milk from the farms.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

It has to be diverted. It often has to be disposed of, sold to alternative processors at a lesser price, or sent to anaerobic digesters.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Which means this operational downtime directly harms the financial return for the dairy farmers who supply the facility in the first place.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

So it's not just an environmental compliance issue. It is a critical financial imperative for the entire agricultural network in the state. Just keeping the lights on.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

The maintenance and operations teams were consumed with just managing the immediate compounding issues and keeping the plant running.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Putting out fires.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

Exactly. They lacked the dedicated, uninterrupted time required to sift through massive amounts of historical data and actually perform a deep root cause analysis on the microbial instability.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

So they needed help.

SPEAKER_03 9:33

Yes. They recognized they needed a highly focused external perspective to untangle their KPIs.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Aaron Powell And this realization led to what I think is arguably the most compelling aspect of this deep dive.

SPEAKER_03 9:46

Yeah, the partnership.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Exactly, a highly unique academic partnership. MWC connected with Michigan State University's anaerobic digestion research and extension center, commonly referred to as ADRS, which is led by Professor Wei Liao. But rather than approaching this as a traditional industry consultation where a firm hands over a report and just walks away.

SPEAKER_03 10:06

Here's a binder. Good luck.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

Exactly. Dr. Liao integrated this into the university curriculum.

SPEAKER_03 10:11

Yes, he turned this industrial challenge into a capstone project for undergraduate biosystems engineering students.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

Which is wild.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

It is. Carter Monson actually served as the student team leader for this initiative. And this approach changed the entire dynamic of the problem-solving process. The execution required the MWC operators and the university students to work collaboratively right on the facility floor. Wow. Yeah, MWC provided the students with full access to their proprietary data, their biological samples, and their daily operations.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Okay, I had to push back here on the risk profile of this strategy, though.

SPEAKER_03 10:45

Okay, fair enough.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

Because we are talking about a facility that handles a quarter of Michigan's milk supply.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

Yeah, 2.9 billion pounds.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

The stakes are incredibly high, and downtime means lost revenue for farmers, like we said. So how does a major industrial processor successfully mitigate the operational risk of letting undergraduate students troubleshoot and basically alter the operations of a multimillion dollar critical infrastructure system?

SPEAKER_03 11:11

Aaron Powell It's a very valid concern. And mitigating that risk really came down to the operational structure of the partnership. Matt Vanick described the student's role using the term bird dogging.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

Bird dogging.

SPEAKER_03 11:23

The undergraduate students were not handed the controls to the wastewater facility to experiment with live operational variables.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Okay, that makes me feel a bit better. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 11:30

Yeah, nobody was just letting them push buttons. Instead, they functioned as a dedicated analytical resource operating in parallel with the facility staff.

SPEAKER_02 11:39

Aaron Powell So they were essentially processing the data that the internal team just did not have the bandwidth to analyze.

SPEAKER_03 11:46

Exactly. Dr. Liao initially worked with the MWC leadership to define the exact parameters and specific boundaries of the system's challenges.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

So they're the scope.

SPEAKER_03 11:55

And only after those boundaries were firmly set did the students center their capstone projects around those targeted issues.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Okay, that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Yeah. They spent their time pulling continuous samples, running laboratory tests, and applying rigorous academic theory to diagnose the exact chemical drivers of the fluctuating pH and the declining aerobic sludge activity.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

Aaron Powell Okay, but when it came time to actually implement a fix, is analyzing data is one thing, but making a change to the system is another.

SPEAKER_03 12:24

So when the student team developed a proposed strategy to remedy the microbial instability, they did not implement it independently. Okay. The solutions were vetted, refined, and ultimately executed collaboratively with the seasoned MWC operators.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

So there was always a professional safety net.

SPEAKER_03 12:41

Absolutely. This structure perfectly married theoretical rigor with practical application. The students brought advanced analytical techniques and the dedicated time required to deeply investigate the misaligned KPIs. And the operators provided the practical boundaries, ensuring that any proposed adjustments to the treatment process were safe, viable, and most importantly, would not induce further instability.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

It really is a brilliant way to leverage outside resources. Carter Monson noted the value of gaining first-hand experience tackling real-world agricultural and food processing challenges, right?

SPEAKER_03 13:14

Yeah. Huge for the students.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

Well Vaynick noted how beneficial it was to have this new resource to essentially track down the root cause.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

A win-win.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

Totally. And ultimately, this student-led team successfully analyzed the system's performance, properly diagnosed the core issues, and created a functional practical strategy to stabilize the wastewater treatment process for consistent operation.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

And stabilizing the system was really just the first phase.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Really?

SPEAKER_03 13:41

Yeah. Correcting the KPIs and resolving the microbial instability introduced a profound level of systems thinking that has fundamentally shifted MWC's long-term operational goals regarding resource management. Matt Vanick explicitly stated that this initiative was not about merely checking a compliance box or solving one isolated issue. He credited Michigan State University with bringing a technical depth that helped build a permanent foundation for sustainable operation.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

And we can already see this foundation yielding measurable results, especially regarding their sustainability targets.

SPEAKER_03 14:15

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

Because Glanby had established a corporate goal to decrease city water usage across its processing plants by 10% by the end of 2025. And according to the data, MWC has already hit this target well ahead of schedule.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

Which is fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 14:29

And a major factor contributing to this achievement is that the plant already sources two-thirds of its water directly from the raw milk it processes.

SPEAKER_03 14:38

That is just a critical operational metric. But what is truly fascinating is that they are pushing this concept even further.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Oh, well, okay.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

Yeah, because the wastewater infrastructure is now highly stable and mathematically predictable, thanks to tracking the correct KPIs, MSU and MWC, are actually collaborating to develop a fully circular water system at the facility.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

A fully circular system?

SPEAKER_03 15:00

Yes. Professor Liao noted that MWC actually has the potential to become the primary model for what a fully circular water system looks like in the state of Michigan.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

To achieve this circularity, an MSU ADRKE analysis identified opportunities for even greater water reuse within the plant. And currently, one of Dr. Liao's students is operating on-site, actively collecting data using a reverse osmosis membrane.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

And the goal there is to determine if the reclaimed wastewater can be purified yet again for further reuse within the plant's operational footprint.

SPEAKER_03 15:33

And the underlying mechanism here is really worth detailing for you listening.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Yeah, let's break that down.

SPEAKER_03 15:39

So reverse osmosis involves applying significant pressure to force wastewater through a specialized semi-permeable membrane. This membrane contains pores that are so microscopically small that only pure water molecules can pass through.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Well, everything else gets caught.

SPEAKER_03 15:56

Exactly. While dissolved solids, remaining organics, and impurities are just blocked and rejected.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

So let me get this straight. They are taking the water that was used to clean the plant or water that was extracted from the whey process, running it through the biological wastewater treatment we discussed earlier with the aerobic sludge.

SPEAKER_03 16:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

And then proposing to push it through reverse osmosis to achieve total purification.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

Correct. And the ultimate goal of this technological integration, as Vanick noted, is the really exciting prospect of the facility becoming completely water neutral, or potentially even transitioning into a net water generator.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

Or a water generator. Yeah. In the packaging industry, we constantly discuss the closed-loose supply chain. It's this ideal scenario where every piece of packaging material is recovered, reprocessed, and reintroduced into the system.

SPEAKER_03 16:44

Resulting in zero external waste.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

Exactly. Complete material independence. So applying that concept to a massive dairy processor, how does reaching water generator status fundamentally change the environmental footprint and the economic resilience of this kind of facility?

SPEAKER_03 17:02

Transitioning a high-volume processing facility into a net water generator represents a complete paradigm shift in industrial resource management.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Sounds like it.

SPEAKER_03 17:11

Your analogy of the closed loop supply chain is highly applicable here because in a standard linear manufacturing model, water is viewed purely as a utility.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

You buy it, you use it, you dump it.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

Exactly. It's drawn from the local municipality, used in the processing and cleaning phases, treated to meet baseline compliance standards, and then discharged right back into the municipal sewer or local watershed.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

Which incurs significant costs at both the intake and the discharge point while also placing a continuous volumetric burden on the local municipal infrastructure.

SPEAKER_03 17:43

Exactly. Achieving water generator status totally inverts this linear model.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Because of the milk itself.

SPEAKER_03 17:49

Yes. Raw milk is naturally composed of roughly 87% water. During the Cheese and Whey protein manufacturing processes, MWC is constantly separating the valuable milk solids from that liquid. Okay. So by utilizing advanced technologies like these reverse osmosis membranes, they can extract that native water from the raw milk, treat it, and purify it to a standard where it can be continuously reused for internal plant operations.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Plant operations like CIP or clean-in-place systems.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

Which are notoriously water intensive in the dairy industry. Dairy. As well as boiler feed water and cooling tower makeup water.

SPEAKER_03 18:27

Precisely. If the volume of pure water extracted from the 2.9 billion pounds of incoming milk exceeds the volume of water required to operate those internal systems, the facility literally becomes a net water generator.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

That is incredible.

SPEAKER_03 18:41

And from an economic resilience standpoint, this grants the facility near total operational independence from municipal water supplies.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

They are in the mercy of the city.

SPEAKER_03 18:51

Exactly. They insulate their operations against rising utility costs, potential regional water scarcity issues, and the strict volumetric limits that are often placed on heavy industrial water usage.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

And from an environmental stewardship perspective, the footprint of the facility is just drastically reduced.

SPEAKER_03 19:09

Drastically.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Because instead of consuming millions of gallons of local city water to support their processing demands, they become entirely self-sustaining.

SPEAKER_03 19:18

Exactly. This entire evolution from suffering critical microbial instability and operational inconsistency to actively piloting reverse osmosis for a fully circular water system, it really demonstrates the profound impact of rigorous systems thinking.

SPEAKER_02 19:36

It really does.

SPEAKER_03 19:37

By aligning their KPIs and utilizing the deep technical analysis provided by the university partnership, they didn't just return the $25 million system to its baseline functionality.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

They didn't just fix it.

SPEAKER_03 19:47

No, they optimized it to redefine the operational capabilities of a modern dairy processing plant.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Aaron Powell So, what does this all mean for you and your operations in the packaging and processing sectors? We have explored how MWC transformed their critical wastewater treatment system from an unstable operational liability plagued by fluctuating pH and declining aerobic sludge activity into a highly optimized strategic asset.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

And they achieved this transformation not by simply throwing more capital at the hardware, but by partnering with Michigan State University biosystems engineering students to identify and correct their misaligned key performance indicators.

SPEAKER_03 20:27

By establishing a highly structured collaborative environment where academic theory directly informed practical industrial operations, they stabilized their critical infrastructure.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

Which is no small feat.

SPEAKER_03 20:38

Not at all. This stabilization protected the financial returns of their dairy farmers by preventing operational downtime, and it allowed the facility to successfully meet their 2025 city water reduction goals well ahead of schedule.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

Now, through continued systems thinking and the application of reverse osmosis technology, they are paving the way to become a fully circular net water generator.

SPEAKER_03 21:00

It's an exciting future.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

It really is. And this journey leaves us with a compelling final thought to consider regarding your own processing and packaging facilities.

SPEAKER_03 21:08

Definitely.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

If a massive processing facility responsible for 25% of a state's milk supply can transition from grappling with a critical, compounding operational crisis to potentially becoming a net water generator simply by bringing in a fresh academic perspective to analyze their data. What hidden value or operational breakthroughs might be waiting in your own facilities if only you had the right eyes looking at your KPIs?

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Thank you for listening to Through the Line Packaging and Processing. You can listen to more episodes on all streaming platforms. Be sure to visit us at packworld.com, profoodworld.com, and healthcarepackaging.com for more packaging and processing news. This podcast was edited by Bree Guns