International malt producer saves money with anaerobic digestion

摘要

In Australia, Muntons is best known for its range of home beer-making kits, made from UK malting barley to emulate classic beer styles from around the world. However, the company is also a producer of a range of malt products for food manufacturers around the world. Muntons also believes in sustainable production. Since early 2016, the company has operated a novel closed-loop system, which turns some 80,000 tonnes of liquid malt waste into a high-quality biofertiliser at its production plant in Suffolk, England. The basis of the system is a $9.4m, 499kW on-site anaerobic digestion (AD) plant that generates 25 per cent of the site's electricity and turns 80,000 tonnes of liquid malt waste a year into quality organic digestate fertiliser, which is used by the company's network of growers. In turn, they produce some of the 250,000 tons of barley needed to make 180,000 tonnes of Muntons' malt each year. In the process, the company has saved more than 800 tonnes of CO2 emissions and saved more than $5.95m in electricity and waste disposal costs.