GREEN PIONEERS: A compostor that really is Rocket science

The Sunday Times
April 19, 2009
The big time beckons for a firm whose bacterial device speeds up the recylcing of food waste
Andrew Stone

COMPOST is normally a subject confined to allotments and Gardeners’ Question Time. A Macclesfield company, however, is turning it into a business.
Accelerated Composting began as a semi-amateur attempt to cut the time it took for garden waste to turn into compost and has developed into a business that helps hotels, restaurants, hospitals and large organisations such as councils and the RAF recycle their food waste instead of sending it to landfills.
A keen gardener, Simon Webb’s late father John knew the benefits of creating good compost – but he was impatient. “He was frustrated by the amount of time it took garden cuttings and horse manure to turn into useable compost,” said Webb.
“At the time I was working for an environmental company that used bacteria to control pollution. I heard about a process developed in a Japanese lab that created compost in 48 hours and told him about it. He started doing research into the processes involved and developed a prototype using his knowledge of microbiology. It worked really well.”
The father-and-son team soon realised that businesses and organisations that produced food waste could use their device and patented the technology Europe-wide in 2003. “There was never an intention to develop what was supposed to be a domestic device into a waste-treatment process, but we realised, more or less by accident, that we had developed a product that solved other people’s problems,” said Webb.
The product, called The Rocket, is an insulated steel tube that creates the ideal conditions for the different types of bacteria involved in breaking down food waste. The largest version can compost up to five tonnes of waste a week, breaking down all kinds of food waste, including meat and dairy products, into safe, usable compost free of pathogens within 14 days.
The benefits of composting waste are numerous, said Webb. “Aerobic digestion of waste, basically composting, produces a small amount of carbon dioxide whereas sending it to landfill produces methane, which is 20 times more harmful than carbon dioxide in terms of its effect on atmospheric warming.
“Putting food in an anaerobic digestor produces methane, too, and it’s expensive. To be commercially viable you also have to build large digestors, which means you have to transport the waste to them, whereas our customers process their waste on site and most of them use the resulting compost to enrich the soil in their grounds or gardens.”
Compost has another beneficial environmental role to play, said Webb. “We’re short of organic matter in our soil in Europe. We’ve been putting chemicals into it that leach organic matter from the soil and lead to run-off pollution and increased use of pesticides and artificial fertiliser,” he said. “Compost puts organic matter as well as nutrients back into the soil, restoring the natural balance, which is why organisations like the Soil Association and the Royal Horticultural Society are so keen on it.”
Accelerated Composting had sales of £1m last year. It is a minnow in the waste-management and recycling sectors, but it finds itself on the right side of several trends that should see sales grow to at least £5m in three years, with potential to grow much further, said Webb.
Local councils are showing interest in composting and so are private operators, such as Aardvark Recycling in south London, which collects household food scraps, composts them in the Webbs’ Rocket and uses the end product to enrich local parkland.
Landfill tax rises are driving much of this activity. The next increases in the tax will take composting from being about as expensive as burying food waste to making it far cheaper, said Webb. From next year, local councils will also make schools bear the cost of disposing of their food waste, adding 16,000 to Webb’s potential customer base.
The firm’s sales have grown 30%-40% a year for the past two years and Webb’s problem is to decide how aggressively to pursue growth in Britain and in its fledgling export markets. In the past year Webb has primed the business for further growth by leasing and renting equipment as well as selling it, shortening the sales cycle and offering greater incentives to firms that might otherwise not be able to find the cash for upfront investment.
The business could grow much faster still, said Webb. Its first exports last year to America, Canada and the United Arab Emirates totalled £150,000 though the demand is vast, he said.
“We could grow by 400% a year or even 4,000% if we could pursue every opportunity, but the challenge is to keep control of the cash flow and not overstretch ourselves,” said Webb. “We have ploughed every penny back into the business so far, but we are starting to think about looking for an investor to help us realise all these opportunities.”