Scottish organic waste management company Keenan Recycling has secured a £2.2m investment from Business Growth Fund (BGF) to fuel its expansion in the Central Belt.

The family-owned business, which is headquartered in New Deer in Aberdeenshire, launched its commercial food waste collection service in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire in 2010 and now processes more than 60,000 tonnes of waste each year, transforming it into British Standards Institute accredited compost.

Keenan Recycling opened a base at Linlithgow in August 2015 and has invested £700,000 in a fleet of six lorries to roll out its award-winning organic waste collection service to customers in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The investment from BGF will trigger further expansion in the Central Belt, where the firm is already collecting food waste from more than 600 clients and is on track to reach 1,000 businesses within the coming month.

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Grant Keenan, managing director at Keenan Recycling, said: “We’ve seen our number of clients more than triple from 600 to in excess of 2,000 since the Scottish Government introduced its waste regulations in January 2014, which means that all local councils have to collect food waste and all businesses that produce more than 50kg a week can’t send their leftover food to landfill sites.

“More than one million people already benefit from our services and so we’re excited to be able to bring the same opportunities to clients in the Central Belt too.

“This investment from BGF will allow us to speed up our expansion in the Central Belt and help even more customers to reduce the cost of dealing with their waste.

“With the support of our business development manager Claire Keenan, we’ve developed an experienced team and seen the business grow across the Central Belt in recent months allowing us to deliver our collection service throughout the whole of Scotland. ”

BGF, the independent company providing growth capital for small and mid-sized businesses, will take a minority equity stake in the firm and a seat on the board.

BGF is already familiar with the waste sector having invested £7.5m in December 2014 in J&B Recycling, which has two facilities in Hartlepool and a waste transfer station in Middlesbrough.

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