Compass Group, working with Greenergy, plans to divert the 2,500 tonnes of waste cooking oil it produces annually away from the animal feed market by January 2004.
The Animal By-Products Regulations which bans feeding catering waste to livestock, which is currently the route for most of the UK's waste cooking oil. The ban is due to be implemented in the UK in October 2004 after a delay of the ban to allow the development of stable alternative markets.
Compass Group is one of the world's largest catering companies, employing over 110,000 people in the UK with an annual turnover of 3 billion. Its catering clients include hospitals, universities and airports and it owns several retail brands including Millie's Cookies, Whistlestop and Ixxy's Bagels. The company claims to support services at 9,000 locations and serve nearly three million meals a day.
The cooking oil from Compass' restaurants and catering outlets will be converted by Greenergy into around 2,300 tonnes of biodiesel. This will be blended with 95% ordinary diesel to create GlobalDiesel to be used in Compass' delivery fleet.
Mike Batchelor, technical services director for Compass Group UK & Ireland, said: “At Compass Group, we believe that producing biodiesel fuels from waste cooking oil is a more sustainable disposal method that selling it on to the animal feed industry. Biodiesel made from waste cooking oils is a low carbon fuel, and our initiative will not only support government targets on carbon reduction, but also demonstrated sustainable waste management.”
The catering company is also looking into using the biofuel for distribution chain and other logistic operations.
Environment
Greenergy, an independent supplier of low emission fuel, also sells GlobalDiesel to Sainbury's, Tesco and Murco.
Andrew Owens of Greenergy said: “We are delighted to have secured this partnership with Compass Group. Professional processing of waste oils from the catering industry will provide a significant and sustainable source of raw material for high quality biofuels production in the UK.”
Mr Owens added: “Consumer demand for bio-blended fuels is growing at an extraordinary rate with forecourtss such as Sainsbury's and Tesco already selling Greenergy GlobalDiesel, made exclusively with rapeseed oil, to the UK motorist. In the contract catering sector, recycling of waste oils for use in fleets makes both economic and environmental sense.”
Greenergy guarantees that GlobalDiesel offers a 5% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a reduction up to a 20% in particulate emissions and improvements in fuel economy.
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