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Muntons digester wins top award in its first year

By: JimOldfield

July 21st, 2016

Less than a year after opening its new £5.4m anaerobic digester (AD) plant, to convert its waste products into more than 10 per cent of its total electricity needs, maltster Muntons has seen the plant win a top industry award.

Muntons AD award trophyThe Stowmarket plant took the award for Best food and drink industry AD project, at the AD and Biogas Industry Awards.

It was a posthumous triumph for Muntons site services manager, Mick Cochrane, who pioneered the AD plant but sadly died just before it was commissioned.

The award is a highly contested category for UK food and drink companies, sponsored by HRS Heat Exchangers.

Some 400 guests at Birmingham’s Vox conference centre saw Muntons’ victory, at a ceremony hosted by Charlotte Smith, presenter of radio 4’s Farming Today programme.

Dr Nigel Davies, Muntons’ Manufacturing and Sustainability Director, picked up the trophy – accompanied by Muntons team members who manage and run the AD plant on a day-to-day basis.

Muntons AD award

Nigel Davies, centre collects the award.

Mr Davies said: “To win this award means a great deal to us.  Our site services manager, Mick Cochrane was the driving force behind our AD project but sadly he passed away just before the project was completed.

“His legacy is the AD plant, which now generates 13 per cent of our Stowmarket plant electricity, has enabled us to significantly reduce waste tanker movements and more importantly provides us with a biofertiliser which we can offer back to the farmer to enrich the soil on which our raw material, malting barley, is grown.”

For more information, visit Muntons’ website