Coca-Cola Adds Wastewater-to-Energy Tech to Circular Manufacturing Toolbox

The business innovation arm of Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) —
the world’s largest Coca-Cola bottler and one of the world’s leading consumer
goods companies — has invested in a tech startup turning wastewater into clean
electricity.

CCEP Ventures has led an investment
round for Pipeline Organics — a UK-based
climate-tech company focused on converting sugar-rich wastewater into “a
continuous supply of planet-friendly electricity” to help power CCEP’s food and
drink manufacturing operations.

Pipeline Organics — which manufactures portable fuel cells that can generate
electricity and heat through an electrochemical reaction — secured £800,000 in
the round led by CCEP, as well as additional grant funding from Innovate
UK.

Pipeline told The
Grocer
that the funding will help scale its technology from a laboratory setting to
“real-life operational environments,” including Coca-Cola manufacturing sites
across Europe.

It will also streamline development for more applications of this “cleaner and
cheaper” energy within the food and drink industry; Pipeline’s first commercial
product is on track to be launched by the end of 2025.

“Volatile energy prices, inefficient distribution networks, deteriorating
infrastructure and unreliable supply chains are creating huge problems for
industries worldwide,” said Pipeline Organics co-founder and CEO Arielle
Torres. “Existing
renewable-energy technologies are just not good enough, and we desperately need
more innovative energy solutions fit for the future.

“Our technology has the potential to solve many of these challenges as it
promises to deliver clean, cost-effective renewable electricity 24/7 directly on
site — stabilizing energy access and operational costs without sacrificing
sustainability.”

This is just the latest in a string of strategic partnerships and investments
from CCEP Ventures aimed at scaling circular technologies that harness
industrial waste streams as manufacturing resources: In 2022, the company joined
forces with the University of California Berkeley to develop scalable
methods of converting captured CO2 into
sugar.
Then, in 2023, the company funded Swansea University
research
into how carbon captured from industrial plants can be reused to make new
plastic
packaging;
and partnered with Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Spain and the
Netherlands’ University of Twente to accelerate their research into
carbon-capture
technology
and explore how captured CO₂ can be turned into a variety of useful products for
CCEP’s supply chain — including packaging materials and sugar, carbonation for
soft drinks or fuel to power its factories.

Its latest investment aims to put Pipeline Organics’ tech to work converting
sugar-rich wastewater from the manufacturing process back into a free-flowing
supply of renewable electricity. The startup has developed a compact generator
the size of a brick that can already generate more power per year than a 550W
solar panel, saving space and enabling a quick retrofit on site.

“Renewable energy is critical to our decarbonization journey; and the prospect
of generating it onsite, using existing infrastructure and byproducts, is
incredibly exciting,” said CCEP associate director Nicola
Tongue. “We’re looking
forward to working with Pipeline Organics as they enter the next phase of their
journey, as we work towards our goal of using 100 percent renewable electricity
across our sites by 2030.”

79 percent of the electricity CCEP purchased in 2023 was renewable, according to the company’s 2023 Impact Report.