Festive Focus: Bdaily chats to the MD behind Keenan Recycling

Can you introduce yourself and your business to our readers?

“My name is Grant Keenan, I’m [the] managing director of Keenan Recycling, Scotland’s largest food waste collection company.

“The business collects food waste from hotels, cafés, restaurants, factories and universities etc, whereby it is then transported to anaerobic digestion plants and turned into electricity.

“We do this all over Scotland and we are so excited to be here in Newcastle to continue with our vision of diverting food waste from landfill and instead using it to create green electricity.”

How did you manage to successfully expand into the North East, and why did you choose this region?

“We have been collecting food waste in Scotland for over 10 years now and because it’s a legal requirement as it is in Ireland and Wales we have really saturated our market.

“It has become so normalised now as people recycle food waste at home, at work and young kids are also doing it at school.

“We are a family business that began in Aberdeenshire in 2001. In 2015, we took a £2.2m investment from BGF (Business Growth Fund) to help us start collections in Glasgow and Edinburgh with a view to expanding across the border when the time was right.

“We chose the North East because it was a natural geographical progression and our research showed that Newcastle is striving to be green with the whole smart city agenda, early indications also showed that the region is ready to embrace change and lead the way in organic recycling.”

What will your company bring to this region?

“Firstly, we will bring further employment to the area as we take on more HGV drivers, sales people and account managers.

“We know we have a big task ahead as people have been so used to landfilling food waste for many years, but now that we are here we can give people who want to be green and do the right thing the ability to do something worthwhile with their food waste.

“We can also be of great service to business owners who sell food as they will now have the ability to monitor how much is actually wasted.

“Experience has shown us time and time again that when food waste is separated and volumes can be monitored, that buying habits and practices change, so it’s a really big economic driver for business owners who want to save money and reduce waste bills.”

What are your company’s plans for 2019 having expanded into the North East?

“Our vision is to bring food waste to the forefront of people’s minds which we believe will lead to the halt of landfilling such a valuable resource.

“People are getting far more environmentally aware now about the harmful effects of things like plastic after programmes such as Blue Planet and, given the choice now, we think the time is right for our new service.

“We have a further 11 trucks planned for the North East which are being built [now], the first of which will arrive in January, so 2019 will be a really fantastic year for us.”

What are you planning on doing this festive season?

“Christmas is always a really busy time for us as collections increase in line with the festivities, but I’m really looking forward to having my daughter, Honey, back with us for a few weeks as she is at university in Glasgow, and spending time with my wife Claire and son, Cooper, who is 14.

“We are also planning on spending time with my parents and in-laws which involves a Christmas pantomime every year. I’m looking forward to some great laughs, stories and catching up with everybody’s news, not to mention eating and drinking too much - then I will need to think about my 2019 diet!

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