US-based Vermont Coffee Company has announced that its coffee roasting facility in Middlebury, Vermont is now powered by 100% renewable energy, and the company claims it is the first US coffee roaster to achieve this milestone.
The facility will now be 100% powered by electricity and thermal energy sourced from methane, reducing carbon emissions in the production process.
Electricity will be sourced from anaerobic digesters operated by Addison County dairy farms, which extract methane gas from cow manure.
Meanwhile, thermal energy is sourced from methane recovered from a Quebec-based engineered landfill operated by EBI Énergie, and this methane replaces propane in the production process.
To ensure the success of the new energy supply agreement, the company claims that it invested in new coffee roasting equipment over the last few years, in order to make the company’s roasting operations more efficient.
The company’s founder and CEO Paul Ralston said: “The capital investment to upgrade our roasters was significant, but our first responsibility is efficiency, and increased efficiency makes the higher cost of renewable energy less of an issue.
“Renewable bio-energy costs more to produce, and we voluntarily pay a premium price to our suppliers for the renewables we consume. It’s important that we invest in better technology so we’re not passing our higher utility costs on to our customers.”
“Our mission is ‘Coffee Roasted for Friends, and our customers care that our coffee is 100% certified organic.
“We believe they’ll be excited that our energy now comes from 100% renewable sources.”
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