2014 was the year that Fylde Fresh and Fabulous really stepped up its role in helping the environment by investing in a £2m on-site biogas plant, using the latest Anaerobic Digestion technology.

The gas produced by our potato and veg trimmings from both of our processing sites, is captured by feeding these biodegradable trimmings into a large digester tank. This, balanced with grass silage and animal manure, produces sufficient gas to generate up to 1000kw per hour of both thermal heat and electricity from a combined Heat & Power unit. In 2024 we were voted as the world’s best Biogas operator at the  World Biogas Association awards held in Birmingham, winning the award for Best Biogas Plant: Below 1mWe.

All generated heat is used in the offices, the farm site and in the Stanley Villa Farm factories. The electricity is just as effective, completely powering the potato factories, with any surplus passed on to the National Grid. The waste product from the AD is a natural fertiliser that is put back on our fields enriching the soil and negating the need for industrial fertilisers.

Quite simply, the Fylde Fresh and Fabulous biogas plant is a totally integrated self-sufficient operation. It makes use of all bi-products from the primary process of taking potatoes and vegetables from the field, to the point where they’re ready to be distributed to ready meal manufacturers, food services companies and chip shops around the UK.

The biogas plant is supplied by British manufacturer Marches Biogas.

Preston based Fylde Fresh and Fabulous, has been voted as the world’s best Biogas operator at the recent World Biogas Association awards held in Birmingham, winning the award for Best Biogas Plant: Below 1mWe.

The company which grows over 1000 acres of potatoes and operates 2 vegetable processing sites in Leeds and Preston, use the peelings from their plant to feed their Biogas Plant to produce 800Ke/h of electric and heat sufficient to power the Preston site and around 600 homes.

Simon Leaver Chief Executive commented “Operating at 98% efficiency we knew we had one of the best plants in the UK in our category, but to be recognised as the best in the world is very special”

Beating off competitors from India and Brazil he further added “We have a very dedicated team who live by a real attention to detail culture, so it’s fantastic that their efforts have been recognised on a world stage”

Fylde Fresh and Fabulous have plans in place to construct a second Biogas plant at the Preston site which should be in operation for 2026.