Ferndown store becomes first Sainsbury’s outside London to organically recycle waste food  (posted 11/04/2007)

A FERNDOWN supermarket has become the first Sainsbury’s store outside London to organically recycle unwanted food products.

The Ringwood Road branch has sealed a deal with organics recycling firm Eco Composting (Eco) to handle its waste food on a trial basis.

Under the new scheme, the unwanted food will be collected at least once every fortnight and taken to Eco’s 14-acre site at Parley.

There it is treated under EU Category 3 standards and heated to 70 degrees Celsius. The Eco facility is one of only a few in the country able to conduct this process.

The resultant compost is allowed to rest for up to four months before being screened for plastics and other materials. It is then used by Eco as compost for growing turf.

Sainsbury’s, which has 562 sites across the UK, has been trialling a similar scheme at 21 stores in East and South East London.

Ferndown is the first store outside the capital to adopt the experiment. If successful it could be extended to other Sainsbury’s stores in the area.

James McKechnie, Sainsbury’s Recycling and Resources Manager, said the company’s waste policy was based on ‘prevent, reduce, reuse, recycle’ and that, wherever possible, unsold good food was re-used by donating it to worthy causes.

But, he added: “The food waste we haven’t managed to sell or donate we want to have composted rather then send it to landfill.

“A rising Landfill Tax, and a growing expectation that we must get better at dealing with waste, means that we are just starting to see businesses such as Sainsbury’s link to local composting companies like Eco,” Mr McKechnie said.

Andy Hill, Eco’s Sales and Marketing Director, said the recycling of food waste was considered a major growth area for the company.

“This is an important project for us with one on the UK’s best-known companies. We look forward to working with Sainsbury’s in the coming weeks and months on this trial project,” he said.

ENDS

Picture caption: Recycling deal: Andy Hill, Eco’s Sales and Marketing Director (centre) with Gary Wardle, Warehouse and Stock Control Manager, and Kerry Sones, Duty Manager, at the Ferndown store of Sainsbury’s with food ready to be organically recycled.

Editor’s Note: Founded in 1994, Eco Composting is one of the UK’s leading organics recycling firms, annually processing 120,000 tonnes of material on its 14-acre site at Parley, Dorset. End products include turf, enriched topsoil, compost and woodchip. Eco employs 23 staff and recorded a £3.5m turnover in the year to December 31, 2006.

For more information please contact Andy Hill, Sales and Marketing Director, Eco Composting, on 01202 593601 or Andrew Diprose, PR Account Director, Deep South Media on 01202 534487.