Wensleydale Cheese Creamery to Turn Whey Waste into Biogas

The English cheese company will be using its factory waste as a new source of cleaner renewable energy.

All of their whey waste (whey permeate) will be used to make biogas. This, in turn, will heat around 800 homes a year in England, and to put that into numbers – about 10,000 MWh of energy and 1M cubic meters of green gas.

The process used to produce the gas from whey is anaerobic digestion. A process in which microorganisms break down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen.

Believe it or not, there are more benefits. After the sustainable green gas is made, what’s left at the end of the process will fertilize local farmland to improve topsoil quality.

The creamery partnered with environmentalist fund manager Iona Capital to make this project happen. The feedstock agreement will see Iona’s Leeming Biogas plant in North Yorkshire process the cheese waste.

Iona Capital already has nine anaerobic digestion facilities across Yorkshire. The plants are saving the equivalent of 37,300 tonnes of CO2 each year.

You’ve Gouda be happy with that. 😉
(We couldn’t resist)