Rothsay opens Canada’s First Commercial-Scale Biodiesel Plant

21 November 2005

Rothsay, a division of Maple Leaf Foods and Canada’s largest independent rendering company, has opened the country’s first commercial-scale biodiesel plant.

The new facility has the capacity to produce 35 million liters (9.2 million gallons) of biodiesel annually and is located in Ville Ste. Catherine on Montreal’s South Shore.

Rothsay uses animal fats and recycled cooking oils as the feedstock for the plant, using a process it developed internally to prepare the animal waste and used oil. Rothsay has also operated a smaller 4 million liter per year capacity pilot plant in Montreal for the last three years.

It primarily used that output in its own trucks, and for the BioBus project fueling 155 buses on biodiesel in Montreal.

The company annually collects some 750 million kilograms (about 827,000 tons) of meat scraps and cooking oils in the regions that it services in Canada.