Extract coffee roasters
Extract Coffee Roasters has one simple mission – to make coffee better. Their roastery is based in Bristol where they roast coffee, and provides equipment and training to cafes, restaurants and offices across the UK. GENeco worked with Extract Coffee Roasters to provide food waste recycling collections, mostly comprising spent coffee grinds and coffee chaff, a waste product from the roasting process.
"Part of our mission to 'make coffee better' means making things better for the environment and taking action to reduce our environmental impact across different areas of the business. The opportunity to partner with GENeco and see our coffee waste, which is rich in energy potential, transformed into clean, renewable energy, was another positive step forward in making the business of coffee better for our planet."
Their challenge
Extract Coffee Roasters is a speciality coffee roaster based in the centre of Bristol. Here, they roast green coffee beans sourced from single origin estates to create a hand-crafted product used by baristas across the country, including all Boston Tea Party’s cafes. Coffee waste was previously being taken to an allotment for composting, but increasing volumes meant this wasn’t a viable long-term solution.
Our solution
Since November 2017, GENeco has been recycling food waste from the Extract roastery in St Werburgh’s, Bristol. This includes spent coffee grinds, coffee chaff, and staff canteen waste, which wasn’t previously being composted.
The majority of the waste is fairly dense and has a high moisture content, and so GENeco has supplied 140L bins to ensure there are no manual handling issues for the staff or drivers. Collections are made on an ad-hoc basis to suit production schedules.
The food is collected in the Bio-Bee, which is powered by biomethane generated from the anaerobic digestion of the food waste it collects. The clean nature of this fuel means it is not contributing to poor urban air quality in the city centre.
The results
To date we have recycled over 3 tonnes of food waste from Extract Coffee Roasters. This is used to create renewable energy and biofertilisers. The carbon savings from landfill diversion of this food waste is equivalent to driving a car over 6,000 miles.
The energy produced from this food waste is enough to run a gas oven for 60 days or power the Bio-Bee for over 1,000 miles.
GENeco has also continued to divert some of the coffee chaff to a local community farm, and staff from GENeco, Boston Tea Party and Extract Coffee Roasters took part in a volunteering day at the farm earlier in the year.
