Prapthi Rai
HEAD OF QUALITY, BARAKAT GROUP OF COMPANIES
As people, and as brands, we like to develop a product which we trust, and which is safe. We would like to develop a product to serve our children right. This is what Barakat believes in and stands for. At Barakat, innovation is a way of life. Barakat started fresh juice manufacturing back in 2001. We firmly believe in producing a product which is good for you, and that you can trust. We’ve had patients who are cancer survivors are diabetic patients, who say the only product they would drink during treatment would be a Barakat product. What’s better than getting feedback like this?
We had consumers saying your product is healthy, it’s clean, with no additives, no preservatives, and no added sugar, so why are you not doing good for the planet? We listen to every consumer who talks to us. Our commitment simply says the biggest innovation on the planet today is to give back to the soil. By the end of 2025, we should be very close to being a zero-waste company. It’s a very loud statement because, in volumes, the quantity of waste Barakat generates on a daily basis is close to 65 tonnes. It’s not waste which is obviously harmful to the environment, but it is a big amount. So, we have taken every single measure to get closer to being a zero-waste company.
Can we reduce the usage of plastics? Can we look at alternative packaging? We started a 100-miles initiative, and partnered with local farms, with the support of regulatory bodies and the food security system. We had round-table discussions with Al Bayader and we said we want to make a difference, and we want to do it immediately. We started the concept in March 2022 and by the first week of September, we had this whole solution.
Jamil Haddad
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY MANAGER
One of the best things about this project is the speed with which this was brought to market. This was possible due to the R&D that we do in the company. We source a lot of different materials and one of the materials we saw really solving a local problem is BioD. BioD is biodegradable and recyclable, which is key for us in any material we bring to market.
In the UAE, there’s a lot of work being done to make it an even more circular economy, but today, approximately 62% of our waste ends up in landfills or dump sites. So, we needed a solution that would not add to landfills. That’s the idea behind BioD. It is an organic adhesive which incentivises bacteria and enzymes to digest the plastic. Biodegradation by definition means there has to be some sort of organic matter that has been digested. That’s the difference between biodegradation and degradation. That’s how we came up with BioD.
Just some quick statistics. Two million bottles were converted to BioD last year. At approximately 20g per bottle, this means 40 tonnes of PET that will biodegrade. As for the whole capacity of the project, we are talking six million bottles per month, equivalent to 120 tonnes of PET. What’s interesting about BioD is that it is anaerobic and digested. Landfills have tonnes and tonnes of materials over each other and there is no oxygen in those circumstances. Biodegradation pushes towards anaerobic digestion. The best way to deal with food waste is to anaerobically digest it. When you anaerobically digest, you get a very interesting byproduct called biogas. It is very similar to natural gas, is renewable and is a great way of generating electricity.
Here, we have a solution. We have the organic stuff and the packaging giving you electricity and biomass which powers homes. Around 600,000 litres of biogas, a month can produce 3,600kwh of electricity. With an average household consumption of 500kwh a month, we can power up to seven households just with those bottles. If we add the entire production of Al Bayader, we convert 1,500 tonnes of plastics a month. You keep the other half – 750 tonnes can produce 37.5 million litres of biogas, which can produce 225,000 kWh, powering 450 households.
The UAE’s food waste is 270,000 tonnes across the whole supply chain. Again with only half of that, you can get 13.5 billion litres of biogas equivalent, which produces 81 million kwh of electricity, which canpower 162, 000 houses.