Tesco turns food waste into power
February 22nd 2010 Tesco’s new distribution centre in Widnes will be powered by renewable energy generated from food waste.
The retail giant has teamed up with multimodal logistics company Stobart Group and food waste recycler, the PDM Group.
The distribution centre will take its renewable energy from PDM’s combined heat and power (CHP) plant which turns 230,000 tonnes of food waste – including Tesco’s food waste - into renewable heat and electricity.
Through the partnership a direct power link provides renewable energy straight from PDM’s CHP plant to the neighbouring distribution centre on Widnes’ Multimodal Mersey Gateway. The partnership is believed to reduce around 7,000 tonnes of CO2 annually.
Tesco has leased the new 528,000 sq.ft. sustainable distribution centre, which will become operational this summer, to provide increased capacity to service its growing network of stores in the North West.
Juliette Bishop, corporate affairs manager, at Tesco said: “This venture is an ideal example of how sustainability is at the very core of the Tesco business and it’s great that we can demonstrate that our food waste is directly providing power back into our operations, helping us to reduce waste going to landfill and our carbon footprint.”
Robert Ratcliffe, director of the PDM Group, added: “This type of closed-loop biomass-to-energy relationship is rare in the UK and its great that we can work together to not only help bolster green credentials, but also enable Tesco to demonstrate that any food waste it generates is essentially helping to power it’s own supply chain.”
Stobart Group and PDM will be working together to offer Stobart’s customer base – predominantly food retailers – a sustainable recycling service for food waste. This reciprocal agreement will also be highly sustainable, with food waste back-hauled on Stobart vehicles to Widnes, meaning specific waste collections and therefore vehicle movements can be reduced.
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