Food waste software and infrastructure company Divert is building an anaerobic digestion facility in North Carolina, the company confirmed Monday. The company’s two previously announced full-scale facilities, in Turlock, California, and Longview, Washington, are expected to open this year.
The North Carolina facility builds on momentum fueled by a $1 billion agreement with Enbridge, a Canadian gas pipeline and energy company, to construct anaerobic digesters capable of producing energy from biogas. That agreement sped up Divert’s buildout of new facilities, as did a $100 million investment from Ara Partners.
For its latest project, Divert acquired a 28-acre parcel of undeveloped land in Lexington, North Carolina, for $1.3 million, the Winston-Salem Journal reported. The company began a five-year lease in a 67,500-square-foot building in Winston-Salem in 2023.
The North Carolina project will be a “similar size” to the Turlock and Longview facilities, Chris Thomas, the company’s vice president of public affairs, told Waste Dive. Those facilities are expected to process about 100,000 tons of food per year once fully operational.
The projects, referred to by Divert as Integrated Diversion and Energy facilities, complement an existing network of smaller facilities that process and manage food from retailers but don’t provide anaerobic digestion. The company reported 13 total operational facilities last year.
In March, Thomas said Divert is able to grow the reach of its anaerobic digestion business by building on existing food diversion partnerships with grocers and relationships with municipalities. Last year, the company’s food donation business redirected 2.4 million pounds of food, an increase of 10% year-over-year, Divert reported in February. Divert contracted with 1,700 new retail locations in 2024 on top of the thousands it already works with.
“When we expand these facilities, we have an even greater impact, and then just scale up the business more and serve more volume,” Thomas said.
The company expects to begin construction on “several additional Integrated Diversion and Energy facilities” this year, in addition to the North Carolina facility. The expansion plans would enable Divert to process 5% of all wasted food in the U.S. by 2031, according to the company.
