May 24, 2019 - pullins-admin - Generation IV

Food waste is a pet hate of ours.  For over 10 years now we’ve worked with a fantastic charity called Fareshare, donating any surplus daily products to feed the homeless and disadvantaged in our local community.  We’re really proud of this fact, however as a bakery we also end up with food waste that is sometimes not suitable to donate.  For example, we might have a rejected batch of product due to quality reasons, or ingredients that might be damaged, or muffins that (heaven forbid) may have been baked too long etc.

We’ve been on the hunt for some time to find a solution to this food waste and at the end of last year discovered a local company called Geneco, who specialise in converting food waste into energy.  We signed up with them in January this year and since then all our food waste that is not suitable to go to Fareshare is collected once a week by Geneco and converted into energy at their facility in Bristol.

The food waste is collected using their sustainably powered vehicle, called the ‘Bio-Bee‘.  The waste is then taken to their anaerobic digestion plant in Bristol and turned into biogas, which is used to generate renewable electricity or converted into domestic gas for local homes.  The gas produced is also used to power the Bio-Bee, making it the Uk’s first ‘self-powered’ refuse vehicle – one full bin can power the lorry for up to 25 miles.  Any plastic packaging present in the waste is removed and used to produce sustainable electricity for local communities.

It doesn’t stop there though.  The solid by-product of the anaerobic digestion process isn’t wasted, in fact it is nutrient-rich and therefore used as a sustainable biofertiliser for farms.

Processing and donating our food waste in this way not only makes a lot of sense but also helps us to hugely reduce our carbon footprint, leaving things a little better for the next generation of bakers.

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