JANUARY 15, 2026
You may be wondering what citrus seeds and chips from sugar beets have in common. The answer is this: both are firm pieces of organic material which have value to someone.
Seeds are separated from orange juice, along with some peel, rag, core, and pulp, in the juice production process. These seeds have value since oil and protein can be extracted from them. The first step for doing this is to separate the seeds from the rag, core, and pulp.
Chips get knocked off sugar beets when the beets are washed at a sugar mill. They have the same value as the beets, except they are mixed with some weeds, beet tails, and other trash materials. The first step to recover this value is to separate the chips from the trash.
The answer to this challenge is found in a famous citrus publication, Bulletin 784, December 1976, BY-PRODUCTS AND SPECIALTY PRODUCTS OF FLORIDA CITRUS, by J.W. Kesterson and R.J. Braddock. They write:
“A novel procedure for separation of citrus seeds from refuse material has been developed by … the Imperial Citrus By-Products Corp., Lakeland, Florida. This method is preferred since whole refuse … can be separated. The refuse material is transferred to a device which throws and distributes the material evenly onto a moving belt. At the instant of contact, the seeds bounce off the belt…”
The process is similar with sugar beet chips. The chips and waste are flumed to where they drop onto a rotating drum. The chips bounce off the drum and are collected, while the trash sticks to the drum. It is an easy step to scalp off the trash into a separate stream.
Here is a quick video showing one of these in operation:
KP-16 CHIP SEPARATION – Video link: https://youtu.be/KFoCsKsYdkw
Incidentally, if you have further interest in sugar beet chips, our very first Pressing News #1, in March 1993, was Beet Chips.
ISSUE #363
