"Sustainable Visionaries" Final Three Revealed

ReFood, the UK’s leading food waste recycler, has officially announced the finalists of its Sustainable Visionaries student scholarship competition. Ronan Keane from Huddersfield University, Blyth Mkonya from Sheffield Hallam and Florence Cornish from Leith’s School of Food & Wine have each gained a place on the competition’s shortlist and will now go head to head in order to win a £5,000 bursary to progress their studies.

Over the next few weeks, the three students will visit ReFood’s state-of-the-art anaerobic digestion facility in Doncaster and present their ideas on prioritising sustainability to a panel of waste management experts. Whoever shows the most passion and innovation will take the title of 2015’s Sustainable Visionary.

Philip Simpson, commercial director at ReFood, commented: “Already, the Sustainable Visionaries competition has been a huge success. With countless entries from around the country, we’ve inspired students to think carefully about sustainability in their subject and highlighted the importance of recycling to the next generation.

“The idea was simple. Undergraduates submitted a 500 word entry, detailing why they believed reducing food waste could help the UK achieve 2020 waste targets. After carefully judging each of the entries, we narrowed the selection down to three students, who really stood out in their respective fields.

“We’re really looking forward to meeting Ronan, Blyth and Florence and discussing their thoughts and ideas surrounding sustainability in the food chain. Each student is already a sustainable champion in their own right, but the next stage in the competition will push their creativity and expertise even further.”

The Sustainable Visionaries scholarship programme is part of ReFood’s ongoing initiative to inspire the food waste champions of tomorrow and eradicate food waste to landfill by 2020. The company, which operates food waste recycling services for organisations nationwide, helps companies to lower waste management costs by more than 45% and embrace an environmentally-friendly alternative to traditional disposal processes.