January 7^th 2012 ~ El Lago has done it!

For the last year we have been working on reducing our waste water.  Every food manufacturer has some form of waste water.  This water is treated by the local water district to ensure that whatever water makes it back to the water table won’t contaminate it.

When making tortillas, water is mixed with corn to steep.  This process makes a starch and fiber filled water that we had to drain into the sewer system adding to the rest of the water that the city of Austin had to filter and treat.  The city processed the water and the waist was most likely sent to a land fill.

Now we have a waste water system that cleans and filters our used water every day.  The result is clean water that can be reused to steep the corn and a dried cake like product that is used as feed for cattle.  The whole process keeps excessive manufacturing waste from going into landfills.

The city of Austin has certified that we are saving 3,600 gallons of water per day of manufacturing.  This equates to 75,000 gallons of water a month!  In other words we save enough water to fill 5 swimming pools.

At El Lago we strive every day to protect the environment.  This project was a year in the making and we are happy that we had the means to achieve it.

Do you know that all of our corn tortillas and chips are gluten free? We actually have a wall that separates our flour lines from our corn lines to ensure that there is never any cross contamination of our gluten free line. We never move equipment from one side to the other; it is like we have two factories.

We run our flour line 4 days a week and our corn line 5 days a week. We run anywhere from 6 to 12 hours shifts but have more capacity if needed. We are planning on growing the tortilla business so we will eventually use that capacity.