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Food Processing News
News Release from: Inetec
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial
Team on 31 January 2005
Investment for firm with food waste
solution
An innovative firm that helps food producers has received further investment: Inetec machines convert food waste and contaminated packaging materials to a useful source of renewable energy
An innovative firm that helps food producers turn waste into energy has received a fresh investment boost Bridgend-based Inetec has secured investment rounds of £350,000 each from Finance Wales and London-based private equity house Foursome Investments
This article was originally published on Processingtalk on 14 Feb 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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The injection of venture capital into the waste-management business will allow the firm to expand its client base and prove the viability and cost-effectiveness of its technology to a growing pipeline of potential blue-chip customers.
The £722,000 deal, which includes financial contributions from a private investor and the company's management team, brings the total amount of venture capital committed to the business by Finance Wales and Foursome to £1.58m.
Inetec Thermomechanical Treatment machines use a patented process to convert food waste and contaminated packaging materials to a useful source of renewable energy - this takes the form of a biofuel that can be used to power the machines and make an energy contribution back to the running of a business, in the form of steam or hot water.
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At large-scale waste producers the biofuel can be used to generate renewable electricity.
Inetec is also able to process packaging materials and so remove the onerous task of separating food and packaging waste.
Inetec target customers include supermarkets and industrial-scale caterers and food producers.
Customers using Inetec machines to date include Greggs, the UK retailer specialising in sandwiches, savouries and other bakery products.
The technology offers such firms an opportunity to dispose of their waste, invest in a source of clean energy, and generate significant cost-savings.
Inetec managing director and founder, Phillip Nicholas said, "The system gives you total control over your waste and its accumulated cost, and since the waste is processed on-site, the costs associated with its transportation and aftercare are eliminated.
The technology significantly reduces the cost of waste disposal and can largely replace a site's dependency on fossil fuels.
Its process is compliant with all European regulations concerning the disposal of animal by-products and addresses the growing insistence on the part of legislators that companies take responsibility for the waste they produce." These legal requirements are becoming more stringent and are having an impact on food producers, particularly the EU Animal By-Products Regulation, that has banned the disposal of raw meat wastes to landfill, and which will ban the disposal of cooked meat waste to landfill in December 2005.
The Waste Incineration Directive, the Climate Change Levy, the landfill directive and the increasing cost of landfill taxes will also pressurise businesses to find alternative solutions to simply tipping their waste.
Nick Sylvester led the investment from Finance Wales Objective One Fund and feels that the impact of such directives heralds considerable commercial opportunities for Inetec.
He said, "The effect of legislative trends in this firm's core area of business is making some traditional methods of food waste disposal obsolete - and this has created significant market opportunity for a new technology entrant.
Inetec has demonstrated the viability and cost-effectiveness of its technology both during a series of extensive trials and through sales to key customers," he added.
"They are presenting industry with genuine solutions to an issue that is likely to assume more and more significance in business as the decade progresses." For Foursome Investments, Alex Hook said, "Inetec technology works and is genuinely novel - it holds obvious commercial potential but could also make a positive and real difference to the ways that industry meets its food-waste disposal obligations.
"We feel that market demand for this type of solution can only increase over the short, medium and long term - and this firm is certainly capable of grasping that opportunity.
It's an exciting time to be investing for that reason." Finance Wales first invested in Inetec in late 2000.
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