Industry & Business

The North East’s leading animal by-product and food waste collection and disposal service provider is celebrating winning a top business award.

John Warren ABP has won the Services Award at the prestigious final of the North East Business Awards held at Hardwick Hall near Darlington. The award was sponsored by NPower and a judging panel from the energy provider visited the company to evaluate its credentials and approach to service excellence.

As part of the Services Award, the judges rewarded the company’s commitment to service excellence and innovation to help the business grow. John Warren ABP beat off tough competition for the Services Award from Blackwell’s of Norton and PII Pipeline Solutions.

Since it was founded, John Warren ABP has built a reputation as the North East of England’s premier animal by-product collector. As the business evolved, the company introduced food waste collection and disposal services enabling it to support the wider sector from the farm through to abattoir, and processor to retailers. In addition to collecting and disposing of fallen stock from farms and contracted government schemes, the company also collects commercial and industrial waste, animal by-products, food waste, farm recycling and used cooking oils.

At the awards, winners from the three sub-regional events – Teesside, Durham and Wearside and Tyneside and Northumberland – battled it out to be named the best of the best. After winning the sub regional finals of the Durham & Wearside Business Awards in March, the team was delighted to scoop the main award at the gala dinner, where the cream of the north east’s business scene gathered.

Antony Warren, Director at the family firm based at Hamsterley in County Durham, collected the award on behalf of the company, which benefits from over three generations of waste management experience and currently employs 45 staff.

Antony said: “We are extremely honoured to be receiving an award as prestigious as the NECC Services Award. This is a fantastic achievement for the company and testament to the commitment of our loyal and dedicated workforce who are passionate about what they do. We strive to ‘offer a personal service to all of our customers whatever their requirement’.

“We have had a challenging and successful year, which has seen John Warren ABP diversify into new areas with the opening of the north east’s only commercial food waste anaerobic digestion facility by our sister company, Emerald Biogas. As part of our services, we manage a food waste collection service, which had to be processed out of the region until seven months ago. Now we have now expanded into creating green energy from unwanted food, which is processed through the new company at Newton Aycliffe.

“The awards ceremonies for both regional and sub-regional have been very well organised and offer a great opportunity for businesses across the whole region to celebrate their achievements. Both Ramside Hall and Hardwick Hall have been very impressive and a great location for the events.”

The company was also shortlisted for the Low Carbon, Corporate Responsibility & Environment Award and Emerald Biogas was a finalist in the Best Newcomer of the Year category.