Last year, sales of coffee outpaced tea sales for the first time in the UK. Research by Allegra shows that the category grew 7.5pc to reach £5.8bn sales in 2012. Coffee-making is highly wasteful, however, as the entire bean is thrown away once the flavour is extracted. London alone produces 200,000 tonnes of coffee waste every year.
UCL architecture student Arthur Kay landed on an idea to turn these waste coffee grounds into fuel last year. “I wanted to design a coffee shop where all the coffee grounds were turned into biodiesel to provide light and heat for the shop,” he explained.
All vegetables have oil content but no technology existed for extracting the energy from coffee. Mr Kay enlisted the services of a team of bio-chemical engineers and developed a brand new technology for processing the new waste stock.
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