The Leo Group

Last updated

The Leo Group is a privately owned, waste-recycling company based in Halifax, England that specialises in the collection and processing of animal by-products. [1] The company is currently run by Daniel Sawrij, the managing director, who took over from the company's founders, his parents Margaret and Leo Sawrij, in 1988. [1]

Contents

History

The Leo Group was founded in the 1970s by Margaret and Leo Sawrij and was originally named Swalesmoor Mink Farm. The couple bought a 10-acre farm in Halifax in 1971 and began breeding minks and foxes for the fur industry. [2] Following the prohibition of mink farming in the UK and the handover to Daniel Sawrij, the company turned its focus to selling maggots to fishing tackle shops, soon becoming the biggest producer of maggots supplying seven thousand gallons of maggots a week to Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and France [1] At the same time, the company began mixing food for small pet food companies. [1]

In 1993, Daniel Sawrij sold 90 percent of his beef cattle stock, injecting the funds into the maggot business. In the same year, he also renamed the company Leo Sawrij Ltd. in 1993 in memory of the founder. [1]

In 1999, the company made their first acquisition of a rendering plant facility, which became Omega Protein Limited and was the start of the company's involvement in the rendering industry. The company also acquired two knacker businesses, creating Robinson Mitchell Limited, and began the collection of fallen stock. [3]

In 2002, the company purchased a sister rendering plant, Alba Protein Limited. [3] Alba has subsequently been liquidated, but not before it was at the centre of some controversy after the company was fined £350,000 for failing to ensure its lorry drivers had properly logged their hours. [4]

In 2004 the company purchased NuPetra, and then a year later, Goodwill Fats & Proteins and Premier Pet Food in an effort to expand its own pet food business. In 2008, the company added the Kintore rendering plant in Aberdeenshire to its operations. [3]

Operations today

Although the company traditionally specialised in pet food, the Leo Group has expanded into renewable energy, through turning animals and food waste into biomass fuel to produce electricity. The majority of the company's fuel is used in power stations and cement works in and around Yorkshire as an alternative to coal. It also supplies a million litres of oil a week for biodiesel. [1]

The Leo Group employs over 400 staff at six sites across the UK, including its head office in Halifax, a rendering plant in Bradford, and a site in Ingleton, North Yorkshire, which collects fallen stock from 7,000 farms across the north of England and Scotland. It also has a fuel store in South Yorkshire. It is planning to build a £4m anaerobic digester and has begun work on a 10MW biomass plant in Aberdeen. [1]

In 2012, the company's profits reached £7.3m on £60m sales. [5]

The company has been prosecuted a number of times for spillages, flouting planning rules and breaching environmental permit conditions. It has also been on the receiving end of criticism from local residents of Halifax and Bradford who have complained about the noise and smells emanating from the company's factories. [1]

Controversies

Related Research Articles

Rendering is a process that converts waste animal tissue into stable, usable materials. Rendering can refer to any processing of animal products into more useful materials, or, more narrowly, to the rendering of whole animal fatty tissue into purified fats like lard or tallow. Rendering can be carried out on an industrial, farm, or kitchen scale. It can also be applied to non-animal products that are rendered down to pulp. In animal products, the majority of tissue processed comes from slaughterhouses, while the most common animal sources are beef, pork, mutton, and poultry. The rendering process simultaneously dries the material and separates the fat from the bone and protein, yielding a fat commodity and a protein meal. The occupation of renderer has been described as dangerous and dirty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tyson Foods</span> American food company

Tyson Foods, Inc. is an American multinational corporation based in Springdale, Arkansas that operates in the food industry. The company is the world's second-largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork after JBS S.A. It annually exports the largest percentage of beef out of the United States. Together with its subsidiaries, it operates major food brands, including Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, Ball Park, Wright Brand, Aidells, and State Fair. Tyson Foods ranked No. 79 in the 2020 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orica</span> Australian based multinational corporation.

Orica Limited is an Australian-based multinational corporation that is one of the world's largest providers of commercial explosives and blasting systems to the mining, quarrying, oil and gas, and construction markets, a supplier of sodium cyanide for gold extraction, and a specialist provider of ground support services in mining and tunnelling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yorkshire Water</span> Water supply and treatment utility company in England

Yorkshire Water is a water supply and treatment utility company servicing West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, the East Riding of Yorkshire, part of North Lincolnshire, most of North Yorkshire and part of Derbyshire, in England. The company has its origins in the Yorkshire Water Authority, one of ten regional water authorities created by the Water Act 1973, and privatised under the terms of the Water Act 1989, when Yorkshire Water plc, the parent company of the Yorkshire Water business, was floated on the London Stock Exchange. The parent company was Kelda Group in 1999. In February 2008, Kelda Group was bought by a consortium of infrastructure funds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Animal product</span> Materials derived from animal body

An animal product is any material derived from the body of an animal. Examples are fat, flesh, blood, milk, eggs, and lesser known products, such as isinglass and rennet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Economy of Leeds</span> City economy

The economy of Leeds is the most diverse economy of all the UK's main employment centres and has seen the fastest rate of private-sector jobs growth of any UK city and has the highest ratio of public to private sector jobs of all the UK's Core Cities. Leeds has the third-largest jobs total by local authority area with 480,000 in employment and self-employment at the beginning of 2015. Leeds is the largest legal and financial centre in England outside of London, and third largest in the UK after Edinburgh, and in 2011 its financial and insurance services industry was worth £2.1 billion. with more than 30 national and international banks located in the city. Leeds is also the UK's third largest manufacturing centre with around 1,800 firms and 39,000 employees, Leeds manufacturing firms account for 8.8% of total employment in the city. The largest sub-sectors are engineering, printing and publishing, food and drink, chemicals and medical technology. Leeds is also ranked as a gamma world city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network; Over the next ten years, the economy is forecast to grow by 25% with financial and business services set to generate over half of GVA growth over that period with Finance and business services accounting for 38% of total output. Other key sectors include retail, leisure and the visitor economy, construction, manufacturing and the creative and digital industries.

Wessex Water Services Limited, known as Wessex Water, is a water supply and sewerage utility company serving an area of South West England, covering 10,000 square kilometres including Bristol, most of Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire and parts of Gloucestershire and Hampshire. Wessex Water supplies 1.3 million people with around 285 million litres of water a day.

Dennis Eagle Limited is a UK-based bin lorry manufacturer owned by Terberg Environmental.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Faccenda Foods</span>

Faccenda Foods Limited is a privately owned UK business established in 1962 by Robin Faccenda, which supplies fresh poultry products.

In China, the adulteration and contamination of several food and feed ingredients with inexpensive melamine and other compounds, such as cyanuric acid, ammeline and ammelide, are common practice. These adulterants can be used to inflate the apparent protein content of products, so that inexpensive ingredients can pass for more expensive, concentrated proteins. Melamine by itself has not been thought to be very toxic to animals or humans except possibly in very high concentrations, but the combination of melamine and cyanuric acid has been implicated in kidney failure. Reports that cyanuric acid may be an independently and potentially widely used adulterant in China have heightened concerns for both animal and human health.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gardein</span> Line of foods by Conagra Brands

Gardein is a line of meat-free foods produced by Conagra Brands. In 2003, the company was founded by Yves Potvin, who remained as the CEO of Gardein until 2016. In November 2014, Pinnacle Foods purchased Gardein for $154 million. Pinnacle was acquired by Conagra in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Team Pennine</span> Transdev-owned bus operator

Team Pennine operates both local and regional bus services in West Yorkshire, England. It is a subsidiary of Transdev Blazefield, which operates bus services across Greater Manchester, Lancashire, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire.

Cranswick plc is a leading UK food producer and supplier of premium, fresh and added-value food products. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aramark</span> American food service, facilities, and uniform services provider

Aramark is an American food service, facilities, and uniform services provider to clients in areas including education, healthcare, business, prisons, and leisure. It operates in North America and an additional 20 countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Philippines, South Korea, Chile, the Republic of Ireland, and Spain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2 Sisters Food Group</span> Subsidiary of Boparan Holdings Ltd

2 Sisters Food Group, a subsidiary of Boparan Holdings Ltd, is a privately owned food manufacturing company with head offices in Birmingham, England primarily focusing on private label manufacturing for retailer and food service markets. Established in 1993 by entrepreneur Ranjit Singh Boparan as a frozen retail poultry cutting operation, the company now covers 20 sites in the UK, six in the Netherlands, one in Ireland and one in Poland. It is the largest food company in the UK by turnover. The group employs 18,000 people, with annual sales of £3billion. It is listed 9th on the 2017 Sunday Times Top Track 100.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cleanaway</span>

Cleanaway Waste Management Limited is an Australian waste management company. Founded in 1979 by Brambles, it has extensive operations in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Daniel 'Danny' Sawrij is the managing director of the Leo Group, a waste recycling and animal by-products company. He took over the company in 1988 from Margaret and Leo Sawrij, his mother and father. He has an estimated personal wealth of £360m and was ranked 932nd on the Sunday Times Rich List 2013.

Prosper De Mulder Group, commonly known as PDM Group, was a British group of companies that operated in a number of fields associated with the food chain. It was acquired by the German-based SARIA Group and the name was changed to SARIA in 2014. The company provided services to the agricultural and food sectors, as a producer of green forms of energy, and as a manufacturer of products for human consumption, pet food, aquaculture, oleochemistry and agriculture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GFL Environmental</span> Canadian waste management company

GFL Environmental Inc. is a waste management company with headquarters in Toronto, Canada. GFL operates in all provinces in Canada, and currently employs more than 8,850 people. The company provides environmental services to municipal, residential, commercial, industrial and institutional customers. On July 6, 2021, the company announced the formation of the Resource Recovery Alliance (RRA) and an agreement to acquire Canadian Stewardship Services Alliance.

AgriProtein is a British agricultural and biotechnology company that uses insects to convert food waste into sustainable products including: an alternative protein for use in livestock and aquaculture feed, a natural oil for use in animal feed, and an organic soil enhancer. The company was founded in 2008 in South Africa. AgriProtein is a subsidiary of the Insect Technology Group.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Profile-Danny Sawrij: Managing director who thrives on making success out of waste". Yorkshire Post. 23 August 2011.
  2. ↑ "History". Leo Group Limited.
  3. 1 2 3 "Leo Group – Recycling Waste Streams into Ingredients and Energy". Food and Drink Business Europe. October 2011.
  4. ↑ Julie Tickner (24 May 2013). "Denholme waste site boss faces £450,000 court bill over lorry hours charges". Telegraph and Argus.
  5. ↑ "Rich List 2013". The Sunday Times. 7 April 2013.[ dead link ]
  6. ↑ "£27,000 bill for waste lorry breaches". Telegraph & Argus. 5 July 2012.
  7. ↑ "Transport firm admits eight grisly spills on our roads". Halifax Courier. 28 July 2011.
  8. ↑ "Factory worker dies after JCB accident". Dumfries & Galloway Standard. 19 February 2010.
  9. ↑ "Details for Case No. 4177537". WorkBoostWales.net. 26 August 2007.
  10. ↑ "WILDRIGGS FIRM FINED £24,000 FOR FAILING TO ENSURE SAFETY OF ITS EMPLOYEES". Cumberland and Westmorland Herald. 6 November 2004.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.