MITIE, the strategic outsourcing and energy services company, and a Scottish charity, Edinburgh Cyrenians, have formed a partnership to rapidly grow a unique food waste enterprise started by the charity in 2009. 

CORE (Cyrenians Organics Waste Recycling), one of Edinburgh Cyrenians social enterprises, pioneered a system for separating and collecting food waste.

MITIE sees significant opportunities to expand CORE’s innovative food recycling offering to clients in Scotland and the rest of the UK, due to new legislation set to be introduced in the UK which will mandate the separation of food and other waste. 

The UK government is committed to working towards a zero waste economy, with food waste a significant part of its most recent waste review. 

Millions of tonnes of food is wasted in Scotland each year and CORE works with commercial organisations throughout Edinburgh and Fife, such as Ikea, Aegon, the Scottish Parliament and Scottish & Southern, to manage and reduce their waste. 

CORE started in 2009 as a social enterprise collecting commercial food waste, with part of its business model committed to providing training and jobs for people rebuilding their lives after personal setbacks, such as homelessness.

Chief Executive of Cyrenians, Des Ryan, heralded the deal as a win-win for MITIE and the charity: “We want to see our food waste social enterprise grow to its fullest potential. Both parties are passionate about developing the collection and use of food waste as a resource that will create employment and training opportunities as well as bring climate change benefits and support for the UK low carbon economy.” 

Martyn Freeman, Managing Director of MITIE Facilities Management, said: “We are delighted with this development. CORE will support the growth of our existing waste business. It has a sustainable business model that provides opportunities for people to re-enter the workforce after homelessness and has an innovative approach to reducing waste in the UK.”

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Notes for editors

What is MITIE?
We’re the strategic outsourcing company. What does that mean in practice? We manage facilities, properties and assets for our clients across the UK and beyond.

We work with our clients in three ways; some take full advantage of our whole range of expertise, others may only need one aspect of what we do:

Strategy and consultancy
+ Facilities and project management
+ Service delivery

Our strategic input can add value at the highest level by helping clients to manage their assets, while our practical management expertise can save customers money and reduce their carbon emissions. We work with a vast number of clients in every industry across both the public and private sectors and deliver the broadest range of services that can be found in one place: from integrated facilities management to engineering maintenance to lifecycle energy management and much more.

There’s a lot more to MITIE than you probably think. We’re a big company with big ambitions – a leading FTSE 250 support services business, with more than 56,000 people, revenues in excess of £1.7bn, and a reputation for being the best.

Visit us at www.mitie.com