Nestlé and Cargill are piloting turning coca shells into low carbon fertiliser, in a move to creating a more sustainable supply chain.
This two-year trial is designed to evaluate the fertiliser’s performance on crop production, soil health and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction.
If successful, up to 7,000 tonnes of low carbon fertiliser could be produced and offered to farmers in Nestlé’s UK wheat supply chain. This amount of fertiliser equates to around 25% of Nestlé UK’s total fertiliser use for wheat.
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Cargill global engineering lead Sam Thompson said the food manufacture hopes to “contribute to a more sustainable future for the British farming industry.”
Nestlé regeneration lead Matt Ryan said the pilot is a “very meaningful step” towards a net zero future.
The production and use of conventional fertiliser accounts for approximately 5% of global GHG emissions, and more than half of the carbon footprint of wheat grown in the UK is related to fertiliser use.
Nestlé says that recycling valuable nutrients from waste streams within the food system provides a promising opportunity to create a lower emissions supply chain. Scaling up low carbon fertiliser production in the UK can provide farmers with a more sustainable product at a reliable price.
“Farmers often find themselves to be among the first groups to be exposed to global issues, and these risks are then borne by the food system we all depend upon,” added Ryan.
“We have to find ways to build more resilience into the system and optimising our use of natural resources is a critical part of this,” he continued.
‘It works!’
The trials which were designed and are being overseen by York-based Fera Science Ltd are currently taking place on arable farms in Suffolk and Northamptonshire.
They are designed to investigate the performance of the fertiliser in terms of wheat yield and quality and will assess the impacts on soil biodiversity and GHG emissions in comparison to conventional products applied on the same farms.
The cocoa shells are supplied by Cargill, which processes the cocoa at the York facility to become key ingredients in iconic products like KitKat and Aero. A trial volume of cocoa shell has been processed and pelletised by Swindon-based CCm Technologies.
Richard Ling, farm manager at Rookery Farm, Wortham in Norfolk, who supplies wheat to Nestlé Purina, said: “We have now finished harvesting and we’ve successfully grown a Winter wheat crop using this new fertiliser.
“We’ve compared two parts of the field, one which used the cocoa shell fertiliser, and one which used with the conventional fertiliser, and there is no significant difference in the yield so we can see that it works!
“We are really reassured with the results and are looking at running further trials,” added Ling
“It’s a step change to be able to use a fertiliser made from a waste stream and see the same results as using a conventional product.”
“It’s an exciting and promising time and we are pleased to be taking part in these trials to help reduce the carbon emissions from our farming,” he concluded.
Featured image credits: Doug Peters / PA Wire
