Food Waste Operator Group to meet on 4th June

On 4th June, the Food Waste Operator Group will be meeting to discuss the key topics affecting their day-to-day operations and the future developments for this part of the industry. The meeting is being hosted by Jelf Insurance Brokers at their office in Worcester.

We encourage all food waste operators to attend (this group is open to ADBA members as well as those who are not) to be part of the discussions and help to shape ADBA’s work. The meeting will be chaired by Kevin Quigley from Emerald Biogas.

The main topics for discussion are:

Digestate quality and markets

Given the keen interest in this topic at previous meetings, we have invited Dr David Tompkins from Aqua Enviro to lead a detailed session to draw out the key issues around digestate quality. We will consider questions such as – should England be matching the tighter physical contamination limits that are being implemented in Scotland? And how can we as an industry help to reduce plastic pollution? It would be great to have as many operators along as possible, to ensure the conversation is representative of all views.

We will also discuss the market opportunities for digestate and attempt to identify actions towards overcoming any barriers (such as regulatory barriers).

Food waste policy

We have invited Defra and WRAP representatives to attend and discuss their respective work on food waste. WRAP will give an update on their work in increasing food waste capture rates where there are existing collections, and we hope to hear the latest from Defra on the ending of food waste to landfill by 2030.

Setting high standards

ADBA will give an update on the AD Certification Scheme’s implementation and our meeting hosts, Jelf Insurance Brokers, will explain the insurance benefits available to operators who take part. The first plant certified to the scheme, Granville Ecopark in Northern Ireland, is a large food waste plant, and it was excellent to see this leadership. Having had some positive conversations with other food operators in recent weeks regarding the scheme, it will be great to discuss as a group how the scheme can support the industry going forwards.

Confirm your attendance

If you are a food waste operator who would like to attend this meeting or would like more information, please do let us know by emailing me at jessica.allan@adbioresources.org. ADBA’s Head of Policy, Ollie More, and I will be attending the meeting and look forward to catching up with the group.