UK retailer Sainsbury's, in partnership with food waste recycler ReFood, has launched an initiative to power a number of its stores with green gas.
The energy, which is made entirely from food waste, made up 10 per cent of Sainsbury’s entire national gas consumption for the year, having been supplied with 50 million KWh of biomethane gas from ReFood.
As part of the agreement, food waste is collected from Sainsbury’s depots and converted into gas, heat and fertiliser at ReFood’s processing facilities, which Sainsbury's imports to use as carbon-neutral electricity for power and heating.
The agreement is one of the largest of its kind in the UK, seeing ReFood supplying both green gas and supporting certification. Commenting on the project, Paul Densham, utilities buyer at Sainsbury’s, said: “Increasing the sustainability of our UK stores is a key corporate priority and we’re making great progress in our drive to reduce food waste across the business.
"What’s more, it sits well alongside our wider sustainability goals, such as working with food redistribution charities and prioritising sustainable transport strategies. The project has helped us to become a market leader in sustainability and waste reduction, ensuring that we send zero waste to landfill – a promise we’ve been able to make for some years now.”
The volume of green gas created by the partnership is enough to have continually powered 5,000 homes for a year.
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by John Golden. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
