Greenergy to make biodiesel from junk food

Greenergy has announced it is looking into creating biofuel from unsaleable solid food.

The biodiesel company, which supplies one fifth of Britain's road fuel, has teamed up with Brocklesby, a specialist in waste cooking oil, to extract oil from fatty food, such as crisps, pies and junk food, that would otherwise be destined for landfill.

It has invested £50 million in a new biofuel production facility which will extract and purify the used cooking oils, which will then be blended with the diesel that Greenergy supplies nationally.

Any food solids that remain will be composted or used to produce energy through anaerobic digestion.

Andrew Owens, chief executive of Greenergy, said: "The quantities of biodiesel that we're currently producing from solid food waste are small, but we're expecting to scale up so that this soon becomes a significant proportion of our biodiesel."

Meanwhile, a report by International Energy Agency (IEA) suggested that 27 per cent of world transport fuel could be provided by biofuels by 2050.