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Potato power is here
Potato power is coming to Lincolnshire with the news that BiogenGreenfinch is to build a new anaerobic digestion plant for Branston Ltd., one of the UK’s largest suppliers and distributors of potatoes. The new plant will take all the available potato waste at the company’s premises near Lincoln and convert it into green electricity and fertiliser. It is estimated that the plant will produce 300kW of electricity continuously which is enough to power several hundred homes.
Based at Milton Ernest in Bedfordshire, BiogenGreenfinch is the only anaerobic digestion (AD) business in the UK with the ability to design, manufacture and operate such plants. Chairman, John Ibbett says, “The agreement to build an AD plant for potato waste at Branston is another important step along the journey to use food waste to reduce the greenhouse gases we in Britain emit and produce electricity from sustainable sources. We’re delighted to do business with Branston and to see that they share our vision for a Britain where technology like AD could have a significant impact on the environment and all of our futures.”
The plant is part of a £1.4 million investment in green technologies by Branston which has been supported by the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the European Union via the East Midlands Regional Development Agency (Emda).
Branston’s Development Director, Mark Willcox says, “At Branston, we’re committed to working in harmony with the environment. This exciting development is a continuation of that strategy and will help us by reducing our utility costs and help the environment by reducing our use of fossil fuels. We will be using potatoes which are unfit for consumption, to produce a significant amount of electricity and in doing so become one of the first food producers in the UK to harness such innovative and environmentally friendly technology. As well as being incredibly efficient, the anaerobic digestion plant is also safe, quiet and odourless.”
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Contact: Anita Smith, Marketing Manager Tel: 01234 827227
anita.smith@biogengreenfinch.co.uk
New FD for BiogenGreenfinch
BiogenGreenfinch is delighted to announce the appointment of Paula Jennings as the company's new Finance Director. A qualified accountant and MBA, Paula is an experienced project and corporate finance specialist having previously worked for BDO Stoy Hayward and PricewaterhouseCoopers. She has over fifteen years experience in accounting, risk management and finance and has significant energy and waste sector expertise. She has been a panel member for the Environmental Investors Forum, has lectured for SMI and Euromoney and is a non-executive director of Renewables East.
Paula will be responsible for BiogenGreenfinch's financial and funding strategies and will work closely with the CEO on implementation of strategic growth and building and controlling the company's financial resources. She will also take on responsibility for central services including human resources and IT.
BiogenGreenfinch Chairman, John Ibbett, says, “We are delighted to welcome Paula to the business and believe she will make a significant contribution to its rapid growth and financial strength. Her background tells a story; she has worked for some of the most prestigious names in the world of corporate finance and has a proven commitment to the environment and alternative technologies.”
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Contact: Anita Smith, Marketing Manager Tel: 01234 827227
anita.smith@biogengreefinch.co.uk
Notes to Editors
• BiogenGreenfinch is part of the Bedfordia Group based in Milton Ernest, Bedfordshire, and is the country’s leading designer, manufacturer and operator of anaerobic digestion plants.
• The anaerobic digestion process converts organic materials into methane which is then be turned into green electricity. It also provides a nutrient-rich liquid fertiliser used to grow crops.
• The company has formed a number of relationships with local authorities, food manufacturers and supermarkets to process their waste and avoid sending it to landfill. With three facilities already in operation, a network of plants around the country is planned.
• Food waste which goes to landfill releases methane into the air. Once in the atmosphere, methane is twenty- two times more destructive as a driver of global warming than carbon dioxide.
Quarter of a million London homes to generate green electricity from food waste
From Rotten Eggs and Mouldy Bread to Green Heat and Light from a Quarter of a Million London Homes
Food waste from a quarter of a million London homes is to be turned into electricity instead of being dumped at landfill.
Thrown away kitchen waste from Ealing, Hounslow and Richmond will be collected from the doorstep and taken away to be transformed by Anaerobic Digestion, or AD into electricity for the National Grid.
West London Waste Authority has struck the deal with BiogenGreenfinch Ltd. of Milton Ernest in Bedfordshire. The company will take the food to its new AD plant at Westwood in Northamptonshire.
The deal is good news all round for council tax payers and for the environment:
•The authorities will save millions of pounds in landfill tax which they would have had to pay if the food waste had been disposed of in the traditional way
•Food in landfill gives off methane – a greenhouse gas twenty-two times more devastating than carbon dioxide
•That methane will instead be burnt to generate enough green electricity to continuously power almost three thousand homes
•Separated food waste means no more rats or foxes targeting bin bags and spreading mess
•Experience shows that where households recycle their food waste, recycling rates for other materials like paper and glass go up.
All householders have to do is put out a plastic box, provided by their local authority, along with all other recyclables. This is collected on the same wagon as glass, paper and plastics ready for processing by BiogenGreenfinch.
Philip Greenaway from BiogenGreenfinch says, “This is fantastic news for us but it’s also a tremendous step forward for people living in Ealing, Hounslow and Richmond boroughs. We congratulate the West London Waste Authority on taking the lead in using what’s regarded as the greenest of the recycling technologies to treat their source segregated food waste. We already know that the scheme will be very popular with local people and that it makes financial and environmental sense.
We’re also so pleased for everyone here at BiogenGreenfinch who’ve put in three years hard graft on developing AD in the UK. We’re confident it’s a technology with fantastic potential”.
Councillor Irwin Van Colle, Chairman of West London Waste Authority adds, “We’re very pleased to be working with BiogenGreenfinch on this new contract. I’m confident that the new plant will be a great success. This is the Authority’s first contract to use Anaerobic Digestion as a treatment technology for food waste. It represents the future for waste management. Diverting waste from landfill like this saves money for Council Tax payers, helps generate electricity and provides a bio-fertiliser for use on farmland“.
This Thursday (30th April) dozens of delegates from London local authorities will attend an event at the Imagination Gallery to learn more about AD from BiogenGreenfinch experts and others. The event will be hosted by Urban Chef, Oliver Rowe.
NOTES TO EDITORS
•BiogenGreenfinch has pioneered the recycling of food waste in the UK to produce fertiliser and clean energy.
•BiogenGreenfinch is a British, family business with over 30 years of experience within the AD industry
•The company designs, builds, funds and operates Anaerobic Digestion plants and has been responsible for the development of 12 Anaerobic Digestion plants to date in the UK including 2 food waste plants; Twinwood commercial food waste AD plant in Bedfordshire and Biocycles South Shropshire Biowaste Digester in Ludlow.
•The Westwood AD plant will process a total of 45,000 tonnes of food waste each year producing sufficient electricity to for 2,700 homes.
•Anaerobic digestion plants like Westwood will help the UK to reach the target of 15% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020. (restats.org.uk)
•The same amount of food waste can produce 35,000 of a superior biofertiliser which is spread onto 1,750 acres of growing crop.
•Anaerobic Digestion is a low carbon technology that is acknowledged to be the most environmentally sustainable way to dispose of food waste.
•AD Plants like Westwood are a key part in the UK’s attempts to produce 15% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
Pictures illustrate doorstep collection of segregated food waste for use in AD.
For more information contact: Anita Smith, Group Marketing Manager, Bedfordia Group. Tel: 07760 164400 email: anita.smith@bedfordia.co.uk
BiogenGreenfinch and Sainsbury's Join Forces in Recycling Venture
BiogenGreenfinch, a leading local commercial food waste recycling company, recently announced that supermarket retailer, Sainsbury's, has invested in BiogenGreenfinch’s commercial Anaerobic Digestion plant at Westwood, Northamptonshire.
The multi-million pound plant is already at an advanced stage of construction and will be commissioned in early 2009. This investment is an important first step of a planned joint venture between the two companies which will include the review of other opportunities in the UK and follows a current initiative run in conjunction with 38 local Sainsbury’s stores linked to its Northampton Distribution Centre. Anaerobic Digestion is now a key component of Sainsbury’s strategy of no food waste to landfill and this joint venture allows them to roll this out on a national scale to its stores and depots. In addition to disposing of Sainsbury’s own waste, the plants will be available to serve Sainsbury’s suppliers.
John Ibbett, Chairman BiogenGreenfinch said: “This is an exciting milestone for both companies. Anaerobic Digestion is playing an ever-increasing role in recycling food waste in Britain. Our partnership with Sainsbury’s is of significant environmental benefit and will help contribute toward a reduction in CO² emissions. The Westwood site will not only dispose constructively of Sainsbury’s own waste but will also be available to get rid of that produced by its suppliers, producing green electricity for thousands of people and in turn, green fertiliser for use on growing crops.
Justin King, CEO of Sainsbury’s said, “At Sainsbury’s we have really stretching objectives and targets with regard to the environment, and we are delighted to be working with BiogenGreenfinch who are helping us to achieve them. Their innovation and technical expertise in Anaerobic Digestion has impressed us, and this is why we are happy to invest in their Westwood AD plant in Rushden in Northamptonshire.”
For more information please visit www.biogengreenfinch.co.uk or contact:
Julia Dunmow: 01234 827256 , 07825 633212 julia.dunmow@biogengreenfinch.co.uk
or
Carolyn Jardine, Jardine Michelson Public Relations, 0845 165 1651
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NOTES TO EDITORS
• BiogenGreenfinch has pioneered the recycling of food waste in the UK to produce fertiliser and clean energy.
• BiogenGreenfinch is a British, family business with over 30 years of experience within the AD industry
• The company designs, builds, funds and operates Anaerobic Digestion plants and has been responsible for the development of 12 Anaerobic Digestion plants to date in the UK including 2 food waste plants; Twinwood commercial food waste AD plant in Bedfordshire and Biocycles South Shropshire Biowaste Digester in Ludlow.
• The Westwood AD plant will process a total of 45,000 tonnes of food waste each year producing sufficient electricity to for 2,000 homes. Also Anaerobic digestion plants like Westwood will help the UK to reach the target of 15% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020. (restats.org.uk)
• The same amount of food waste can produce 35,000 of a superior biofertiliser which is spread onto 1,750 acres of growing crop.
• The manufacture of nitrogen fertiliser is the main use of energy in agriculture, accounting for 37% of total energy use. Each tonne of fertiliser made, gives off 6.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gases. The biofertiliser created at Westwood is carbon neutral.
• Anaerobic Digestion is a low carbon technology that is acknowledged to be the most environmentally sustainable way to dispose of food waste.
• One tonne of food waste recycled by anaerobic digestion instead of being disposed to landfill saves the equivalent of 900kg of CO2 entering the atmosphere. Westwood will prevent the equivalent of 37,800 tonnes of CO2 entering the atmosphere per annum.
• The process captures methane gas from the break down of food waste by naturally occurring bacteria in the absence of oxygen. Methane is 22 times more damaging than CO2 to the environment.
29/10/2008
Top British Environmental Businesses Merge
The face of the UK’s Anaerobic Digestion (AD) industry is set to change significantly as the country’s leading operator BIOGEN (UK) Ltd acquires leading technology provider Greenfinch Ltd.
BiogenGreenfinch will hold a unique position in the UK as a business with the capability and capacity to deliver a fully integrated AD solution to the agricultural, food, waste and water industries and to local authorities. BIOGEN’s integrated clean AD plants recycle food waste to produce a valuable biofertiliser and renewable energy and along with Greenfinch they have been responsible for the development of 12 plants to date throughout the UK.
Michael Chesshire, founder of Greenfinch and Technology Director of BiogenGreenfinch acknowledged, "Interest in AD has increased enormously over the past two years because of its strong credentials as a low carbon technology, addressing the challenges of landfill diversion, energy costs, fertiliser costs and resource management. Britain needs a strong home grown AD industry and BiogenGreenfinch brings together the expertise and resources of two pioneering companies which have invested heavily in the development of the technology for food waste, for agriculture and for the water industry.”
Dan Poulson, CEO of BiogenGreenfinch said, “This is an exciting milestone for both companies. BiogenGreenfinch has secured funding from Bedfordia Group plc which has invested a total of £18m to develop the business. The consolidation of two such complementary businesses enables a significant increase in R&D investment, improving further on the second generation AD plant currently under construction and ten further plants in development.”
John Ibbett, Chairman of BiogenGreenfinch and of Bedfordia Group said, “We feel privileged and delighted to be joining forces. Both BIOGEN and Greenfinch have grown from family businesses with strong values and these will continue to be upheld.”
For more information please visit www.biogengreenfinch.co.uk or contact:
Julia Dunmow: 01234 827256 (office), 07825 633212 (mobile). julia.dunmow@biogen.co.uk
Or
Anita Smith: 01234 827227 (office), 07760 164400 (mobile). anita.smith@bedfordia.co.uk
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NOTES TO EDITORS
• BiogenGreenfinch will employ 43 people.
• BIOGEN builds, funds and operates Anaerobic Digestion plants which convert waste food (which would otherwise be sent to landfill) and animal slurry into renewable electricity and a valuable bio-fertiliser.
• The plant at Twinwoods recycles food waste sent to the site by local authorities, food manufacturers and retailers, and slurry from Bedfordia’s pig farming operation.
• Greenfinch is a process engineering company, providing anaerobic digestion technology, with over 30 years of experience within the industry.
• Greenfinch's work is within three main sectors: sewage sludge digesters, farm digesters and food waste digesters.
• Greenfinch designed, built and is now operating the South Shropshire Biodigester which was the first of its kind in the UK to process source-separated municipal kitchen waste into biogas and a biofertiliser.
• One tonne of food waste recycled by anaerobic digestion instead of being disposed to landfill saves the equivalent of 900kg of CO2 entering the atmosphere.
• BiogenGreenfinch’s Westwood plant will process 45,000 tonnes of food waste each year producing sufficient electricity to for 2,000 homes.
• The same amount of food waste can produce 35,000 of a superior biofertiliser which is spread onto 1,750 acres of growing crop.
