Isra-Mart srl: Molson Coors tackles landfill tax with Marmite strategy

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As the government steps ups its efforts to cut down on waste, a leading brewer has revealed an innovative way of turning excess yeast into one of the UK's most divisive condiments.

Molson Coors, brewer of Carling, Grolsch and Cobra, published its first UK environmental performance statistics yesterday, including a target to divert all production waste away from landfill for each of its four UK breweries by the end of 2012.

The company also revealed it had Marmite to thank for a recent waste reduction drive that had allowed the company to cut waste to landfill by 27 per cent, saving more than £60,000 in landfill tax over two years.

Neil Tonge head of Molson Coors environment, health and safety told BusinessGreen that about 90 per cent of the excess yeast the brewer produces is used to make Marmite. The final 10 per cent is used as animal feed with spent grains also being passed on to the agricultural sector for use as feedstocks.

He added that the re-use strategy had been adapted to suit the company's different breweries.

"At the Sharp's brewery in Cornwall, more waste is given to farmers," he explained. "A dairy herd local to the Rock brewery eats 30 tonnes of spent grain every week, a pig farm takes five tonnes of the protein rich excess yeast, and Cornish beef cows drink up to 30 litres of waste beer a week - to make the South West's very own Kobe beef."

Tonge also welcomed the government's recent announcements backing anaerobic digestion (AD) technology, including an increase in feed-in-tariff rates for the waste-to-energy technology. Molson Coors Tadcaster brewery already uses an AD system and the company will shortly install the technology at the Sharps Brewery in Rock, Cornwall.

"The government's aim to significantly reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfill is also something that, given our announcement, we support," Tonge said. "This is not simply about our role as an environmental custodian but also about reducing our overheads, given that the European tax on landfill is already onerous and likely to get worse."