A Shropshire-based food centre has teamed up with a new local business to transform their food waste into renewable energy.

Ludlow Food Centre, in Bromfield, Ludlow, is now working closely with Woofferton-based firm Lutra Ltd, owned by local businessman Michael Cheshire. This follows a successful pilot scheme which started in February.

To date, Lutra Ltd has taken more than 20 tonnes of food waste from Ludlow Food Centre, producing enough biomethane to run a small van for 17,000 miles. Currently, Michael puts the gas towards a number of different uses, including heating the on-site digester, the local district heating scheme – and even running his own Aga oven.

Rose Moore, Operations Manager at Ludlow Food Centre, explains: “This is a fantastic opportunity to build on what Ludlow Food Centre is really about. We are very much a sustainable business, harvesting local ingredients and producing much of what we sell on site.

“Working closely with a new company in the area, builds on our principles of supporting other local businesses and developing relationships that are mutually beneficial.

“As a large business, we aim to keep our carbon footprint as low as possible, and lowering our landfill waste is a huge part of that. We really look forward to seeing how Michael uses our food waste over the next 12 months, and how our relationship can develop as the business goes from strength to strength.”

Michael comments: “This is still a small project, but it has the potential to become much bigger. We were initially dealing with waste from local farms, but then saw an opportunity to work with businesses such as Ludlow Food Centre and a number of local pubs and restaurants.

“We're currently doing collections across these companies twice a week. The success of our partnership with Ludlow Food Centre demonstrates there is a big future for small ideas.”

ENDS

For further press information and images, please contact: Becky George or Harriet Williams at Monkhouse Food & Drink Email: eat@monkhousefoodanddrink.co.uk Tel: 01939 290399 Twitter: @monkhousefood