Pizza Hut food waste is being recycled into renewable energy thanks to a partnership between the restaurant chain and waste management company Keenan Recycling.
Keenan’s 2025 sustainability update, published today, reports that food waste is being picked up from Pizza Huts across the UK – “from the Scottish Highlands to the English coast” – and diverted from landfill.
Gas from the food waste is being harnessed to produce renewable energy through anaerobic digestion (AD) at Keenan’s partner sites across the country. From the restaurants, the waste is first checked for contaminants such as packaging or plastics and prepared for processing before undergoing AD.
The AD involves the food entering sealed, oxygen-free tanks where natural microorganisms break it down. This process produces biogas – a renewable energy source made up of methane and CO2 – and a nutrient-rich byproduct called digestate. Keenan’s waste partners capture the biogas and use it to generate renewable electricity and heat, or upgrade it into biomethane for use as a vehicle fuel, which actually powers some Keenan collection trucks.
The digestate is used as an organic fertiliser, and is viewed as a method of returning valuable nutrients to soils.
“By diverting food waste from landfill, we have prevented the release of around 130 tonnes of damaging greenhouse gases to the atmosphere,” Keenan’s sustainability update reports.
“Instead, this gas has been harnessed to produce renewable energy through AD. That’s enough clean energy to power 15 British households for an entire year.”
Biffa-owned Keenan said Pizza Hut is its largest-ever direct national food waste contract, adding that it marks “a major step forward in the company’s growth and expansion, as well as its commitment to environmental sustainability”.
Since July 2024, prior to the introduction of Simpler Recycling, Keenan said it has collected more than 189 tonnes of food waste from Pizza Hut restaurants across the UK.
Read more about what retailers are doing with food waste on Green Retail World
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