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Animal feed being produced at Bright Feeds, which has opened a Berlin, Conn. plant designed to process up to 450 tons of food waste daily. (Media photo courtesy Bright Feeds) 50g Packing Machine

Pig farms are one potential customer for Bright Feeds, which has opened a plant in Berlin to convert food waste to high-quality animal feeds as an alternative to regular disposal. (Photo by Sebastien St-Jean / AFP) (Photo by SEBASTIEN ST-JEAN/AFP via Getty Images)

With President Biden vowing this week to rein in methane emissions in the U.S. energy sector, Connecticut's largest plant is now operational and will harness another culprit — food scraps and other organic waste. 

A full bore, the new Bright Feeds factory in Berlin is designed to process up to 450 tons of food waste daily into animal feed. That will be 90 tons more per day than the listed capacity for the Quantum BioPower plant in Southington, which converts food waste to electricity through the process of anaerobic digestion.

Combined, the two facilities will be able to handle roughly half of Connecticut's capacity to divert food from incinerators that feed into ash dumps. Connecticut's trash-to-ash waste system does not include landfills where food might release methane into the atmosphere through the rotting process, but with the closure of Hartford's incineration plant, a portion of that waste is being trucked out to landfills in other states.

The Environmental Protection Agency lists animal feed as a better diversion for food than anaerobic digestion or composting, trailing only repurposing food scraps for human consumption — or of course, preventing food from being wasted to begin with.

In a 2015 study, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection estimated that 22 percent of waste produced in Connecticut at that point was in the form of food and organics.

"This is an economic and an environmental problem," said Scott Kalb, Bright Feeds' chairman who is on the Greenwich Representative Town Meeting. "The established industries are waste-to-energy and composting, so that's where most of the discussion was, but we said this is something that really needs to take over."

Bright Feeds is negotiating with entities that generate large amounts of food waste, with Kalb saying it charges far less on tipping fees than incinerators, landfills and anaerobic digestors, adding there are scenarios where the company would pay for high-quality food scraps. The company also promises round-the-clock "emergency" pickup for customers as needed.

"In the plant, you'll see 50 tons of potatoes in bags that guys dropped off," Kalb said. "Pies, potato chips, fish — it's amazing."

Because the company begins the process upon arrival of food waste, Kalb said odors are kept down to a minimum at the facility.

As the case with Quantum BioPower, Bright Feeds is planning a de-packaging line in Berlin that will recycle any eligible materials such as bags and containers.

Kalb co-founded Bright Feeds with CEO Jonathan Fife, who previously worked for a private equity investment firm in New York that focuses on health businesses, Scott Kalb, a Greenwich financier and Representative Town Meeting member who chairs the company's board; and Tim Rassias, who is chief operating officer.

Bright Feeds expects to employ as many as 45 people at full capacity, with the possibility for more as it looks to add other facilities in the region. Rassias said the Berlin location appealed for access to both Interstate 91 and I-84, but the company is willing to roam statewide for food waste.

In addition to steering food waste back into food — feed for chicken, pigs and cows — Rassias said the animal-feed model appealed due to the relatively smaller footprint that is required to run an animal feed production plant. He said the company is seeking patent protection on a food-drying technology used in the production process.

"We have some high-end technology that we can calibrate and get a lot of the main ingredients to whatever each feed mill's or each farm's desired feed is," Rassias said. "We have some where we have a base and they may add something to it; we have others that we sell our products to that they like it the way it is."

Last year, a Bedminster, N.J. company called Do Good Foods raised $169 million to support a Pennsylvania facility that collects food scraps for conversion to chicken feed, and to build a new plant in Selma, N.C. Unlike Bright Feeds, Do Good Foods is focusing on producing its own brand of chicken in a "closed loop" business model, rather than selling the feed to other farmers.

To date, Bright Foods has raised backing investment — the company is not yet making public the amount — and has been in discussions with Connecticut officials about any possible funding stream.

Bright Feeds spent $1.4 million in September 2021 to acquire its Fuller Way building in Berlin, once the home of Premier Limousine which was sold to Berlin-based Elite Limousine in 2020 after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Bright Feeds team built a new structure in its place with the ceiling heights necessary to accommodate hopper trucks and overhead machinery.

Includes prior reporting by Luther Turmelle.

Cereals Packaging Machine Alex.Soule@scni.com; @casoulman