A local farm's state-of-the-art equipment helps turn food scraps into energy
Vermont Creamery and Vanguard Renewables partner up to turn dairy scraps into energy and fertilizer
Vermont Creamery and Vanguard Renewables partner up to turn dairy scraps into energy and fertilizer
Vermont Creamery and Vanguard Renewables partner up to turn dairy scraps into energy and fertilizer
Today a partnership was announced between Vanguard Renewables and the Vermont Creamery. The partnership is just the beginning of what everyone involved hopes to be a great benefit to the environment.
“It’s a win-win-win, like I said, better for the farmer, better for the market, better for the community,” said Adeline Druart, President of Vermont Creamery.
When looking at Goodrich Farms on the surface, all you may see are barns and animals, but if you look a bit deeper, you’ll find a state-of-the-art anaerobic digester system.
“We’re taking food waste and cow manure and putting it in these large tanks — think of them as an Instapot. We turn the temperature up to 104 degrees, we set the timer for 30 days and we cook that mixture,” said John Hanselman, founder of Vanguard Renewables.
After a month goes by, the product is ready.
“The gas bubbles go to the top, we harvest that gas and clean it and it becomes renewable natural gas," said Hanselman. "Then we’re left with this beautiful organic natural fertilizer that we can bring back to the soil.”
For Vermont Creamery, partnering up with Vanguard Renewables was a “no-brainer” once they learned their food scraps could be used to create energy.
“So 100% of that food waste is going here rather than going to the landfill, rather than going to feed cows, it comes here and we know it's producing renewable energy,” said Druart.
Another positive byproduct of the system is that farms can use a more natural fertilizer and save money.
“We now have fertilizer from the food waste that we didn’t have before. So we’re able to steer clear of commercial fertilizer and it also diversifies our income a little bit,” said Danielle Goodrich, Herdwoman of Goodrich Farm.
One of these systems takes about a year and a half to build. Vanguard Renewables says they already have $700 million more of these digestive projects planned.