Between them, Linden Foods, Dunbia and Fane Valley, three big players in the Northern Ireland agri-food industry, employ almost 3,000 staff locally and have a combined turnover in excess of £300 million, serving most of the main UK retail multiples and several blue chip European customers.
While each company processes and markets different beef, lamb, pork and dairy products, they have a common challenge in dealing with the organic waste they produce, such as animal by-products and food processing waste.
In 2005, Linergy was established with shareholdings by the three companies to provide an innovative solution to what was an increasingly onerous problem.
Operating from a state-of-the-art rendering facility in Granville Industrial Estate in Dungannon, Linergy uses animal by-products and fallen farm animals to produce renewable biomass fuels, tallow oil and meat and bone meal.
The tallow oil produced has the same energy value as heavy fuel oil while the meat and bone meal has an energy equivalent to dry timber or low grade coal.
The tallow oil produced from the rendering process is used on site to raise steam to power the plant. Any excess tallow oil is used as a boiler fuel or as a feedstock for biodiesel products.
The meat and bone meal produced is currently exported to power stations in Great Britain to produce electricity and heat via incineration.
Linergy has innovative plans for a second phase which includes a proposed £18m extension to its current rendering plant. This will utilise existing fuels produced from the rendering process to generate renewable energy.
Linergy expects to produce sufficient electrical power to cover its own needs and those of both Linden Foods and Dunbia.
This would control waste disposal and electricity costs and underpin the future competitiveness of both companies and the local agri-food industry. There will also be a surplus of renewable (green) electricity to export.