Glenfiddich powers biogas delivery trucks with its own whisky waste
Scotch whisky maker Glenfiddich announced that it is converting its delivery trucks to run on biomethane made from waste products from its own whisky distilling process. The company has installed fueling stations at its Dufftown distillery in north-eastern Scotland, which use technology developed by its parent company William Grant and Sons, and will convert its production waste and residues into an Ultra-Low Carbon Fuel (ULCF) gas that produces minimal CO2 and other harmful emissions.
Glenfiddich said the transition to using fuel made from the distillery’s waste product is part of a “closed-loop” sustainability initiative. Stuart Watts, distillery director at William Grant, said traditionally Glenfiddich has sold off spent grains left over from the malting process to be used for a high-protein cattle feed. However, through anaerobic digestion – where bacteria break down organic matter, producing biogas – the distillery can also use the liquid waste from the process to make fuel and eventually recycle all of its waste products this way.
“It has taken more than a decade for Glenfiddich to become the first distillery to process 100% of its waste residues on its own site, then to be the first to process those residues into biogas fuel to power its trucks, and finally to be the first to install a biogas truck fueling station supplied by our on-site renewable energy facility,” commented Watts.
The whisky waste-based biomethane is already powering three specially converted trucks that transport Glenfiddich spirit from production at Dufftown through to bottling and packaging, covering four William Grant sites in central and western Scotland. Each of the IVECO trucks displaces up to 250 tons of carbon annually.
Glenfiddich has a fleet of around 20 trucks and WGS plans to scale up the biogas solution across its entire delivery fleet, as well as across other company’s trucks within the Scottish whisky industry.
