Sustainability is not the no. 1 reason companies buy EnviroPure’s food waste processors, but it is likely what will keep the product selling.
EnviroPure estimates that by eliminating the need for waste removal trucks, its company machines do the equivalent of moving 1.5 cars off the road per ton of food processed.
Even so, cost savings are the main driver in sales of the on-site machine that liquefies food waste into sewer-safe gray water, or turns it into compost. As utility and waste removal costs increase throughout the country, EnviroPure’s on-site “digesters” are increasing in popularity.
Two employees moved constantly but almost silently between two units being constructed last week at EnviroPure’s end of a 100,000-square-foot processing facility owned by T&S Brass. Shiny green pumps and an electrical board with dozens of colorful switches and wires stood exposed. A unit that would process 700 pounds of waste per day stood partially assembled next to a larger one wrapped and ready for delivery to an Illinois grocery store. The company’s largest unit can process seven tons daily.
A cross between a stomach and a wastewater treatment machine, the technology is fairly simple. Bacteria similar to those in the human stomach break down the food, though EnviroPure uses a customized vitamin product to create 70,000-80,000 times the natural number, speeding the process exponentially.
The company moved to Travelers Rest from Chicago in February after being acquired by T&S Brass. All but two members of the 10-member team were hired locally. Each of the new employees needed a varied skill set, from plumbing to electrical to mechanical engineering, said EnviroPure’s president, Jim Slanina. Hiring here was tougher than Chicago because of the lower unemployment rate and competition from large manufacturers, Slanina said.
Slanina said the company has sold about 50 units so far this year, working with a four- to six-week backlog. Last year, it had sold about 30. Units range in price from $20,000 to $50,000, and sales are expected to double as a result of joining T&S, Slanina said.
“We were at the point where the interest level was getting substantial and our infrastructure was small. We needed more capital and resources,” Slanina said of the decision to merge. He had been looking to venture capitalists for funding when a sales representative introduced him to the people at T&S Brass.
“We have the exact same customer base,” Slanina said.
The 66-year-old Travelers Rest company also offered a 70-person sales force and human resources capabilities. In the beginning, EnviroPure was a husband-and-wife team with Slanina’s wife, Linda, doing sales.
“If you want a tough sales job, try to sell something where people don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, nor do you have any to show them,” Slanina said.
Most customers are in the Northeast, west coast and Canada. In other parts of the country, municipalities are cutting costs by forcing companies such as golf courses, grocery stores and universities to keep their food out of the water systems. That means they must pay to haul it to landfills or to otherwise have it processed.
Slanina said processing with an EnviroPure unit costs around $28 per ton, compared with more than $100 per ton for waste hauling in some parts of the country. In South Carolina, energy and waste removal costs are comparatively low, so the demand isn’t there. Slanina expects the most growth to occur in Canada, where high costs and a cultural penchant for environmental awareness create more fertile ground for the product.
The young company has been in the market for about two years, though the new relationship with T&S Brass makes those two years practically incomparable.
“I knew nothing about garbage before I did this,” said Slanina, who was trained as an electrical engineer. He had been in business for himself, and reading an article about the difficulty of dealing with leftover grape skins in wine country gave him the idea for the product his company makes today.
Now the goal is to speed up the process from 24 hours to just a few so that the size of the unit would not matter. That means experimenting with the vitamin composition and process timing. Another goal is to make the system a closed loop so that the wastewater produced feeds back into the system to keep the machine running. Slanina said EnviroPure is probably about six months away from making that next big leap.
