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ORMI Announces Fifth Exclusive Feedstock Supply Agreement with Anaerobic Digester
Toronto, ON, February 18, 2010 – Organic Resource Management Inc. (TSX-V: ORI) (“ORMI” or “the Company”) announced today that it has signed an exclusive, 20-year agreement to supply organic residuals to a farm-based Anaerobic Digester (“AD”) at the Delft Blue, “Corner Farm”, a division of Grober Group Inc., located near Cambridge, Ontario. This is the fifth Ontario farm-based AD to contract with ORMI to receive off-farm organic residuals for conversion into energy.
During the term of the agreement, ORMI will deliver a minimum of 5,000 cubic metres of organic residuals per year and ORMI will pay a processing cost (“Tip Fee”) that will be adjusted downward based on the actual performance of biogas renewable energy produced from the ORMI feedstock. The resulting net Tip Fee is expected to be significantly more competitive than other organic residual recycling options currently available.
The AD is scheduled to begin producing renewable biogas energy in the summer of 2010. Once fully functional, the AD is expected to generate approximately 500 kW, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week – enough energy to supply roughly 400 households. Delft Blue will be energy self-sufficient and sell electricity to the Cambridge and North Dumfries Hydro Inc. (“CNDH”) distribution grid under the Ontario Green Energy Act Feed-In Tariff program. The Delft Blue AD will be integrated into its veal farm operation. ORMI’s high-energy-potential organic residual feedstock will generate in excess of 75% of the energy produced.
Jerry Bartelse, President of Grober Group Inc., stated, “Through our partnership with ORMI, we can now profitably reuse all the organic waste products we generate to produce electricity, help protect the environment and demonstrate responsible business practices.”
“We are excited by the opportunity to partner with Grober Group and to embark on another Ontario farm-based AD project,” said Charles Buehler, Chairman & CEO of ORMI. “We believe that this new agreement is testament to the quality of our AD feedstock and the value of our partnership.”
“We are in substantive discussions with a number of other ADs to reach additional exclusive feedstock supply agreements in calendar 2010,” added Mr. Buehler. “Widespread use of ADs could eventually lead to a new era in organic waste recycling and open substantial new markets for organic waste diversion.”
“As a local distribution company, Cambridge and North Dumfries Hydro Inc. has been entrusted with an important role of fully supporting the Green Energy and Green Economy Act, 2009. One feature is the need to encourage and promote the build of renewable generation.” CNDH President and CEO, John Grotheer confirmed, “with the need for renewables, we support and applaud Delft Blue’s commitment to the production of renewable electricity through biogas. Innovative generation projects of this type are for the betterment of the community and align with the long term goals for our province. The team dedicated to this project, stayed the course and designed an environmentally superior means of generating renewable energy. Well done!”
About Organic Resource Management Inc.
Organic Resource Management is Canada’s largest provider of vacuum truck services for the collection, processing and recycling of food-related organic residuals. ORMI services in excess of 6,000 regular scheduled commercial, industrial, institutional and residential customers in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia. Further information about ORMI may be obtained at the Company’s web site at www.ormi.com.
About Grober Group Inc.
The Grober Group is a vertically integrated group of three companies dedicated to veal production and processing for North American markets. Grober Inc. (Grober) controls the animal feed production division. Delft Blue / Ecolait Farms are the divisions devoted to raising veal calves; and Delft Blue / Ecolait is the Group’s meat processing division.
The Grober Group began business in Ontario in 1974. Since that time it has become one of North America’s foremost producers of veal and the Delft Blue brand has earned a significant reputation in the North American market.
For further information about the Grober Group, please visit the company’s website at www.grober.com
Note: Certain information contained in this press release may be forward-looking and therefore subject to unknown risks or uncertainties. The actual results, performance or achievements of Organic Resource Management Inc. may differ materially from the results, performance or achievements of the Company expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
For further information, contact:
Organic Resource Management Inc.
Charles Buehler
Chairman and CEO
Tel: 416-580-8574
Email: cbuehler@ormi.com
Website: www.ormi.com
The Grober Group
Heather Copland
Marketing and Communications Manager
Tel: 519 622 2500 ext. 240
Email: hcopland@grober.com
The Equicom Group
Glen Williams
Investor Relations
Tel: 416-815-0700 ext. 272
Email: gwilliams@equicomgroup.com
Powering the farm
In rural Hamilton a veal farm puts out $2 million to convert waste to methane and produce electricity
BY ERIC McGUINNESS – PHOTOS BY KAZ NOVAK, THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR
FLAMBOROUGH ✦ Manure from 3,000 veal calves on a Valens-area farm will start producing enough power to supply 500 homes next month.
Industry officials say Delft Blue Veal will be one of only a half dozen Ontario farms — and the first in this area — with an on-site biogas plant turning manure into electricity for sale to the provincial grid.
Farm manager Piet Zeeman likes the idea of raising calves for food, “while you can make hydro with what comes out of the back end.”
Delft Blue, a division of the Grober Group of Cambridge, is building a huge, circular digester tank that will create methane gas to run an engine generating almost 500 kilowatt hours of electricity.
The system will also heat the digester and replace propane now used to heat barns and liquid animal feed.
With a total of 3,000 animals, there is a lot of potential in the waste for methane and nutrient development.
The addition of fat, oil, grease and other liquid food waste from off-farm sources will provide a high-octane boost, maximizing output of green energy while solving a disposal problem.
Nicole Foss, executive co-ordinator of the Agri-Energy Producers’ Association of Ontario, says the biogas process cuts greenhouse gas emissions, removes manure odour, kills most pathogens and prevents Walkerton-like contamination of drinking water. Plant nutrients in the manure — phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium — are preserved in the leftover liquid, or digestate, used as an organic fertilizer.
John Giles, Delft Blue bioenergy project manager, who says he first explored anaerobic digestion in Germany a decade ago, is excited about the prospect of producing power by mid-March.
“You’re not losing your nutrients, but you’re picking up all this carbon in the form of methane.”
The Grober Group processes veal in a federally inspected Cambridge plant for sale to grocers and the food-service industry. It also produces milk-based animal feed and components such as whey protein used in fitness drinks.
The Flamborough farm now has an aerobic digester, one that uses electricity to pump in air to support bacteria that do nothing but remove odour.
In an airless, anaerobic digester, microbes feeding on the waste release methane in a process similar to that in Hamilton’s Woodward Avenue sewage treatment plant, which burns biogas from its sludge digesters to generate electricity.
Foss, whose organization receives provincial aid to encourage biogas production, says: “Anaerobic digestion allows you to reclaim energy and nutrients the way natural systems do. If we promoted it, we could create a huge number of jobs building and servicing biodigesters. Germany built 4,000 plants in 10 years, employing tens of thousands.”
Considering the German experience, it’s not surprising that Plan-ET Biogas Solutions Inc. of St. Catharines, which is installing the Delft Blue system, uses technology from a German partner.
Application manager Matt Lensink says PlanET built digesters for two Niagara greenhouse flower growers in the past two years. They heat the greenhouses and produce power, but unlike Delft Blue rely entirely on off-farm waste, including grape pomace — skins and seeds left over from making wine — and waste from a Toronto dog food factory.
Project manager John Giles inspects equipment at the Delft Blue Veal Farm.
Noting that Ontario’s new Green Energy Act offers premium prices for on-farm biogas power, Lensink says: “The next step is to make people aware of it. Our hope is that it will go, but I don’t know if it will ever be as big here as in Germany, where (power) rates are almost double.”
Foss says current prices are only high enough if the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs continues to offer construction grants.
Ross Blaine, Delft Blue director of innovation, says OMAFRA offers a 40 per cent subsidy up to a maximum of $400,000 — or about 20 per cent for the Flamborough facility in which close to $2 million has been invested.
In keeping with his innovation role, Blaine hopes to do more than generate power. Among other things, he wants to try what he calls nutri-gation, adding digestate to golf-course irrigation systems in place of chemical fertilizer.
used by permisson form Hamilton Spectator emcguinness@thespec.com 905-526-4650



