Agri-Cycle hires Vermont team and forms local partnerships to expand its existing food scrap programs throughout Vermont and the region
Agri-Cycle (ACE) announces its expanded food scrap hauling services and partnerships in Vermont. ACE currently provides food scrap recycling for a number of Vermont businesses, including 17 Hannaford stores, and is now available to provide services for other Vermont businesses, institutions, and multi-family residential units. In addition, ACE’s Vermont operations include plans to manage the compost site located at the Greater Upper Valley Solid Waste District’s Organics Recycling Facility in North Hartland, Vermont.
“I’m excited about our District’s new partnership with Agri-Cycle, as the operator of our Compost Facility and Organics Transfer Station in North Hartland, Vermont” said Tom Kennedy, Manager of the Greater Upper Valley Solid Waste Management District. “As the new operator of both facilities, Agri-Cycle will be able to manage liquids, packaged and non-packaged food waste. These materials will be processed to either create soil at our compost facility, or to create electricity through anaerobic digestion, making the facility in North Hartland the first fully integrated organic facility in Vermont.”
Agri-Cycle launched operations in 2013, partnering to support sister company, Exeter Agri-Energy (EAE), itself an offshoot of Stonyvale Farm, a 5th generation dairy farm in Exeter, Maine. ACE operates throughout New England and works with digesters throughout the region, including the new digester at Goodrich Farm in Salisbury, Vermont. ACE’s Vermont operations include plans to manage the compost site located at the Greater Upper Valley Solid Waste District’s Organics Recycling Facility in North Hartland, Vermont. ACE powers about 2,500 homes annually throughout its service region and grows thousands of acres of organic fertilizer (digestate), a product from the anaerobic digestion process.
ACE staff has years of expertise focused solely on designing a clean, dependable program to fit their varied customers’ needs. ACE’s Packaged Food Waste program, think moldy loaves of bread in their plastic bags, rotten onions in plastic netting, damaged cans, and out-of-date packaged items, increases the tonnage of food waste kept out of Vermont’s only landfill. In its most recent data from 2018, before the state’s landfill ban went into effect, Vermont’s Department of Environmental Conservation estimated that 80,000 tons of food scraps are disposed of annually in the state; an estimated 30,000 tons of that, or 38%, is packaged.
ACE’s customers work closely with food banks and food pantries to redistribute as much usable food as possible before converting the remainder to renewable energy, animal bedding, and fertilizer. Hannaford’s Brand Lead Health and Sustainability Director, George Parmenter notes “Agri-Cycle has been an instrumental partner in Hannaford achieving zero food waste to landfill in Vermont and across our footprint. Having a partner whose sole focus is food waste has been crucial to helping us accomplishing this sustainability goal. Agri-Cycle truly focuses on highest use, educating our associates, and keeping things local.“
ACE added five employees to its Vermont sales team, all are former employees of Grow Compost of Vermont, a Vermont compost and food scrap hauling business that was sold in September. Over the past two years, ACE had partnered with Grow Compost to provide food scrap service for its Vermont customers. When Grow Compost was purchased on September 1st, employees; Brent Lehouiller, Vermont Operations Manager, Carolyn Grodinsky, Vermont Sales and Marketing, and food scrap drivers Craig Streeter, Jason Hunt, and Jesse Boemig joined the ACE team.
Contact: Carolyn Grodinsky
Email: Carolyn@Agricycleenergy.com
Phone: 802-828-5796
Agri-Cycle works with hundreds of partners throughout the Northeast, making it the premier organics hauling company in the region. Our business partners include supermarkets, restaurants, universities, distribution centers, food processing plants, corporate cafeterias, school districts, municipalities, and hospitals. Agri-Cycle works in conjunction with sister companies, Stonyvale Farm (a fifth-generation family business) and Exeter Agri-Energy, as well as a growing network of anaerobic processers who convert food waste into electricity, fuel, fertilizer, and other beneficial products. Our unique model is a fusion of Maine’s independent farming tradition and energy innovation. Waste collection is a critical component: Agri-Cycle brings food full circle.