Alimentary Systems builds bio-resource recovery plants — patented biorefineries modelled on the way a cow digests. They take the sewage sludge and organic waste that cities pay to bury, and return renewable gas, living fertiliser and verified carbon credits.
The idea
A cow turns low-grade organic matter into energy, fertility and growth — nothing wasted. Our founders asked a simple question: what if a city's waste stream flowed through the same design? The answer became the six-stage Bio-Resource Recovery Plant (BRRP): thermal hydrolysis and anaerobic co-digestion, engineered as one closed loop.
Proven in the field
Since 2021 a full commercial-scale co-digestion plant built with our partners Texol has been operating in Yamunanagar, India — years of proof that the process handles real, messy feedstock reliably. We evolved that reference model into the six-stage BRRP now being delivered in New Zealand.
Scaling now
Our 20-tonne-per-day demonstration plant at Bell Island, Nelson is government-backed, consented, and under contract, with a live project pipeline across four regions — and seven cleantech innovation awards and honours along the way.
Zero waste to landfill isn't a target we aspire to — it's the operating state of the plant. Every output stream has a customer: gas to energy, solids to living soil, carbon to the registry.
Partnerships with iwi, including Ngāti Toa Rangatira, reflect kaitiakitanga at the core of the model — infrastructure that restores the land it stands on and keeps value in the region that generates it.
A reference plant running since 2021, a government-backed flagship under contract, and measurement infrastructure that can walk every carbon credit back to the readings that produced it.
Create value from waste with a circular system that regenerates the environment and restores equity.
Solve the water, food and energy nexus by giving Papatūānuku — the natural world — a voice on the board and as a shareholder.
By mixing organic waste streams we increase bioenergy yield and produce nutrient-rich, fossil-free organic fertiliser — keeping our waterways clean and decarbonising the waste, energy and food value chains.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be transferred or transformed. We look to nature for inspiration. We practise creativity, invite conflict, share honestly and listen — to create impact that can withstand adversity. We uphold Tikanga Māori and the Treaty of Waitangi.
We value diversity and inclusion, and believe we can hold multiple truths at once. Only through sharing knowledge will humanity work together with the urgency needed to prevent a climate tipping point. Collaboration is hard work; meaningful innovation needs empathy, diversity and education.
Ecological preservation asks us to be mindful of our environment. Every region has its own ecology; our role is to live in harmony and conserve it. When we do, the natural order is restored.
Planetary stewardship means accounting for the entire value chain. We all prosper when emissions are fully transparent — measured holistically, end to end.
Money is a tool to solve systemic problems and regenerate communities and natural environments. Its goal is to heal and create shared value. Profit is not the end, but a means to further progress.
Site secured, sludge access agreed — consented and under contract.
The regional sewerage unit agreed to lease land at Bell Island and provide access to sludge waste for our 20-tonne-per-day demonstration plant — institutional support in its most practical form: land, feedstock and a working relationship with the operators of the region's wastewater infrastructure.
Awards & programmes
*Categorised prior to the agency's disestablishment.