Suffolk-based Muntons, a supplier of malts and malted ingredients to the food and drinks industry world-wide, has reached a genuine milestone having generated 10 million kW/hr of electricity since opening an anaerobic digester (AD) plant in 2015 — enough electricity to power 2,000 homes every year.

By using its own process waste-water, residues from the processing of barley into malt and malt extract, the company havs saved the equivalent of 3,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent of taking 1,600 cars off the road each year.

The Muntons AD plant does not only produce electricity, a by-product of the process is a high-quality digestate, or bio-fertiliser.

Nigel Davies, Muntons Director of Technical and Sustainability commented: “Our decision to build an AD plant has proved to be well-founded, making a valuable contribution to our energy requirements. Generating energy locally is efficient and environmentally sound, and the positive impact on nature is significant, reducing greenhouse gases and producing high-quality digestate (bio-fertilizer) which helps to enrich the soil on local farms.”

Muntons has calculated that since the plant was commissioned, it has produced 5,606,175m³ of biogas. It has also treated 411,000m³ of waste water, which is then safely returned to the river Gipping.