Water savings in supermarkets: 10 tips by department, from produce to butchery

Water savings in supermarkets are made department by department, because each area uses water in its own way: produce washes and mists, the butchery and fish counter wash and make ice, the bakery and deli work like a kitchen, and cleaning tends to use hoses. Without metering by department, the bill arrives as a single total and nobody knows which area wastes. The 10 tips below follow that division, with what weighs most in each.

In short:

• In a shopping centre in Vila Velha, Brazil, the hypermarket, metered separately by a Federal University of Espírito Santo study, used about 24 m³ a day, almost 8% of all the centre’s water.
• A commercial kitchen wash-down hose discharges 19 to 26 litres per minute, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); a mop bucket takes 38 to 57 litres.
• The pre-rinse spray valve can account for nearly a third of a commercial kitchen’s water, which applies to the bakery, deli and butchery.
• Where refrigeration uses a cooling tower, it can be the building’s largest use: 20% to 50% or more of the water, according to the EPA.
• Reading the meter with the store closed separates use from waste: whatever turns overnight is a leak or forgotten equipment.

Where does a supermarket use water?

In almost every department, and for different reasons in each:

Department	What it uses water for	Where the waste is
Produce	Washing products, misting the stands, cleaning	Washing under running water, misters left on with the store closed
Butchery and fish counter	Cleaning counters, floors and utensils, ice	Hoses left running, inefficient ice machines, ice melting unused
Bakery and deli	Preparation, washing trays and utensils	Old pre-rinse spray valves, dishes washed under running water
Refrigeration	Cooling tower or evaporative condenser, where present	Uncontrolled blowdown, low cycles of concentration
Washrooms and changing rooms	Customers and staff, all day long	Toilets with a trickle, taps without self-closing
Cleaning and outdoor areas	Floors, trolleys, car park, pavement	Washing with hoses, washing outdoor areas with drinking water

In the University of Espírito Santo research on Shopping Center Vila Velha, the hypermarket inside the centre had its own consumption of about 717 m³ a month, metered separately. It is the kind of number that only appears when each area has its own meter.

What are the 10 tips for saving water in a supermarket?

1. Produce: wash in tubs, not under running water. Washing leaves and vegetables in tubs with water renewed per batch uses less than leaving the tap open throughout preparation.
2. Produce: put the stand misters on timers. They should switch off with the store closed and have their lines inspected, where drips are common.
3. Butchery and fish counter: clean with squeegee, mop and bucket. The EPA recommends replacing the hose with methods that use far less water, such as sweeping, mopping and squeegeeing, and warns that self-closing nozzles also leak: shut the supply valve when the hose is not in use.
4. Butchery and fish counter: look after the ice. ENERGY STAR certified ice machines use at least 10% less water and energy, according to the EPA, and making only the ice that will be used avoids ice melting for nothing.
5. Bakery and deli: replace the pre-rinse spray valve. In the United States, valves made before 2005 run at up to 17 litres per minute; those sold today use at most 4.8. Scraping leftovers off trays before rinsing completes the swap.
6. Kitchens: turn off whatever runs non-stop. The EPA lists dipper wells among the equipment that discharges water continuously and should be replaced or switched off when not in use.
7. Refrigeration: control the tower, where there is one. Raising cycles of concentration from 3 to 6 cuts the tower’s make-up water by 20%, and a conductivity controller only releases blowdown when it is needed.
8. Washrooms: self-closing taps and a monthly toilet test. A toilet with a visible trickle wastes 144 litres a day, according to the water conservation manual of Brazil’s National Water Agency (ANA), FIESP and SindusCon-SP.
9. Outdoor areas: sweep instead of washing. Car parks and pavements are cleaned with a broom, and any washing that is needed can use rainwater collected from the roof, with a tank kept separate from drinking water.
10. A meter per department and an owner per area. Whoever runs the butchery tracks the butchery’s consumption, and each department’s target goes on the board. A team that sees the number suggests improvements management cannot see from the office.

How do you find leaks in a supermarket?

With the store closed. Write down the meter reading after the last team leaves and read it again before opening, with misters, ice machines and irrigation switched off. Whatever the meter recorded in that interval is a leak or equipment left on.

Then look for the spot: food dye inside the toilet cistern and coffee grounds in the bowl of a flush-valve toilet, tank overflows running, floors wet for no reason, damp stains on walls and drips in the mister lines. The full step by step is in invisible leaks: find them before the bill does.

In a chain with several stores, comparing them is the fastest clue. A store of the same size and footfall that uses much more than the others has a leak, badly adjusted equipment or a different procedure, and the difference shows where to start.

How do you measure water savings in a supermarket?

With an indicator that does not depend on footfall. The total bill rises in December and falls in February, and hides both waste and savings. The path:

1. Baseline: twelve months of consumption, month by month, for each store.
2. Indicator: consumption per square metre of sales floor or per customer served, the same in every store of the chain.
3. Metering by department: butchery, bakery, produce, refrigeration and washrooms, to know where the savings happened.
4. Adjusted comparison: before and after corrected for the variables that changed, such as footfall and weather, as the international IPMVP protocol requires.

The full roadmap for any business, from quick measures to ongoing management, is in the guide to water savings for businesses, and the kitchen measures, one by one, in water savings in restaurants.

How does T&D help supermarket chains save water?

With SEA 360º, which serves supermarkets and retail chains in two phases. Implementation, with no construction work, covers the baseline under IPMVP, efficiency technology at points of use, electronic leak detection, repairs and team training. In ongoing management, T&D tracks each store’s consumption and delivers monthly reports on financial, operational and ESG performance. The ceiling observed in the full programme is a 70% reduction, and each store’s result is calculated against its own baseline.

TDRR remote monitoring tracks reservoirs, pumps and hourly consumption, and sends an alert by app, text message or WhatsApp when a store drifts from its pattern, including at night. Daniel Coelho, chemical engineer at Supermercados Guanabara, in Rio de Janeiro, said in his testimonial to T&D: “T&D showed commitment to our company from the start, optimising our facilities and offering continuous support. As clients, we contributed suggestions for the system, strengthening our successful partnership with Supermercados Guanabara.”

Frequently asked questions

Which supermarket department uses the most water?

It depends on the store. Where refrigeration uses a cooling tower, it tends to lead, with 20% to 50% or more of the building’s consumption, according to the EPA. Without a tower, the weight falls on the preparation areas (butchery, fish counter, bakery and deli), cleaning and washrooms. Only metering by department shows your store’s order.

Is it worth installing a meter in each department?

It is, in the areas that use the most. A meter shows where the waste is, allows a target per department and confirms whether a measure worked. Without it, management only sees the monthly bill, when the waste has already happened.

Do produce misters use a lot of water?

They do when they stay on without need or when the line leaks. Put misters on timers, switch them off with the store closed and include their lines in leak inspections.

Can a supermarket use rainwater?

Yes, for uses that do not require drinking water, such as washing the car park, pavements and trolleys and, with a dedicated installation, flushing toilets. Rainwater needs a tank and pipes separate from the drinking-water network, as set out in the Brazilian technical standard for non-drinking uses, NBR 15527.

How do you get staff involved in saving water?

With an owner per department, written cleaning and preparation routines and each area’s consumption on the board. When the team sees the number, it points out waste and suggests improvements itself, and training by department turns the suggestion into routine.

Sources

• Guzzo, F. R. Strategies for conserving drinking water by using non-potable sources in a large commercial building. Master’s dissertation, Federal University of Espírito Santo, 2017, in Portuguese: consumption of the hypermarket metered at Shopping Center Vila Velha
• EPA WaterSense at Work, section 4.8, Wash-Down Sprayers (2025): wash-down hose flow rates and cleaning methods that use less water
• EPA WaterSense at Work, section 4.1, Pre-Rinse Spray Valves (2023): the weight and flow rate of pre-rinse spray valves
• EPA WaterSense at Work, section 6.3, Cooling Towers: cooling towers and cycles of concentration
• EPA WaterSense, Saving Water in Hotels (2016): certified ice machines and kitchen equipment that runs water continuously
• Conservação e reúso da água em edificações (ANA, FIESP and SindusCon-SP, 2005), leak loss table, reproduced in Souza et al., XXI Brazilian Water Resources Symposium (ABRHidro, 2015), in Portuguese
• T&D SEA 360º and TDRR