BDC celebrates its success in the renewables industry
THE Biorenewables Development Centre (BDC) – a multi-million pound initiative to provide new processes to convert plants and biowastes into products – is making its mark in the industry.
The firm, based at York Science Park, is celebrating its first successful year in business and is confident it is continuing to grow.
The not-for-profit company has a team of 23, with 18 scientists, and over the past year has invested in improving and extending its facilities, with the commissioning of new laboratory space and world-class processing, extraction and analytical equipment as it helps companies explore opportunities around the use of biorenewable raw materials.
Business development manager, Helen Shiels, said: “Our reason for being here is to support businesses and develop their products and processes.
“Yorkshire and the Humber have got some of the biggest food manufacturing businesses, so there is a lot of food waste in the supply chain.
“There are also big energy companies such as Drax in the region and we are at the centre of that hub of activity.”
BDC – funded by ERDF cash for the next two years – said its target is to help 130 SMEs by 2015.
The company, which was shortlisted in this year’s Yorkshire Business Masters in the Innovator category, handles kilos and litres of produce, but plans to be able to deal with “truck loads” as it evolves.
Shiels said: “The big chemical companies like us because they can do a smaller analysis before going larger and we are discovering new sectors all of the time.”
Juliet Burns, external relations manager, said: “During our first year we have helped around 50 local companies, in addition to businesses from as far afield as South Africa, Australia and Sweden, to explore novel business opportunities around the use of biorenewable raw materials from plants, microbes and waste.”
The firm has worked on a number of projects including helping regional breweries find profitable uses for spent grains, hops and yeast in the manufacture of flavours and fragrances and it has assisted the University of York to spin out Starbon Technologies, by optimising its process to produce significant quantities of its product.
