Black Bull Biochar

🐮 The Danes, damn, they have got it right when it comes to biochar 🐮 The other week, Hamish Creber and I crossed the chilly North Sea to visit some of our European colleagues, and it was great to see a nation with such ambition when it comes to Biochar Carbon Removal (BCR). ⚠️ Warning: This post contains marginally tragic levels of selfies ⚠️ First up was Rockstart, the early-stage investor that supports purpose-driven founders in three key domains: Energy, AgriFood, and Emerging Technologies. Thank you Sofija Bogeva for the coffee and for disclosing the exciting news that Rockstart has just launched the Rockstart Biochar Network, funded by the Danish Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries . This is what we love to see - public and private sectors working hand-in-hand to scale biochar systems. 🌱🤝 On that note, last year, Denmark unveiled a whopping €1.36bn for a Biochar Carbon Removal (BCR) strategy, marking a significant step towards achieving its ambitious climate goals of 2045 climate neutrality and 2050 net-negative emissions. The strategy has the potential to remove up to 1.8 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030. This will enable the Danish agri-food sector to make genuine change, which is great news for our partners and farmers at Arla Foods. 🌍🌾 And that’s where we headed next—Arla Foods HQ. What a beautiful building and the greatest canteen I have ever seen. It was a pleasure to present the last 3 years of our UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero funded research to Thorkild Qvist Frandsen. The work, encompassing LCAs, and carbon modelling, has been completed in collaboration with SRUC, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH), dss+, and the The University of Edinburgh. (check out the BBB website to see the latest results). And thank you Thorkild for bearing with me on the selfie with the Holy Cow… 🐄📸 Last but not least were our site visits to our friends and fellow biochar producers at Frichs Pyrolysis and Stiesdal. Andreas Jespersen and Peter Lindholst, what an almighty effort you have put forward with the 20MW capacity unit, SkyClean. It is great to see this kind of ambition coming to the forefront of pyrolysis technology. And the same goes for Frichs Pyrolysis. Søren Bruun and Mikkel Jensen are taking a different approach and crafting the energy production angle in a uniquely effective way at their plant in Vrå. 🔥💡 Final shout-outs go to Berit Chavez Azeri at Invest in Denmark for setting us up with so many great Danish contacts, and Marina Porto and Vincent Jagota, for hosting me in Copenhagen. A cracking city to knock back a few Tuborgs. 🍻

Agrecalc is a carbon reporting tool developed by combining the on-farm practical expertise of SAC Consulting with the world-class agricultural science and research of SRUC. Last year, Agrecalc collaborated with Black Bull Biochar to upgrade their biochar module, integrating the latest biochar and carbon research to enhance their farm carbon calculator. 🧮 Our Innovation Manager Shefali Bagaria and Co-founder & CTO Hamish Creber have since put together a comprehensive blog, highlighting the core agronomic impacts for farmers. To give you a flavour, here are six key reasons to get excited about biochar: 🌱 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗼𝗶𝗹 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗯𝗼𝗻 – Locks stable carbon into the soil for hundreds to thousands of years, making it a long term climate win 💪 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗴𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗲𝗻𝘃𝗶𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 – A powerful tool to reduce atmospheric emissions and decrease nutrient runoff limiting diffuse pollution and soil degradation 💩 𝗘𝗻𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗰 𝗳𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗿 – Supercharges organic fertilisers by increasing the available nitrogen by up to 40% while decreasing carbon and nitrogen losses. A great way to reduce the amount of mineral fertiliser needed on farm 🐄 𝗘𝗻𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝗯𝗲𝗱𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 – Creates a cleaner, healthier environment for animals (and farmers!) When added to a base bedding, benefits include improved nutrient retention, decreased ammonia emissions, improved foot health and odour control 💧 𝗜𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗶𝗹 𝘄𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 – Highly porous at multiple scales, Biochar helps soil hold onto water better, improving crop resilience to water-related stresses, such as drought and flooding (an increasingly common effect of climate change) 🌾 𝗜𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝗼𝗽 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆 – When used effectively biochar can achieve yield increases by up to 30% and improved plant productivity 💡Curious to know more? Check out the full blog here: https://lnkd.in/eRQqGugB

🌍 Biochar Production in Action: Hollywood Comes to Town! 🎥 Recently, we had the pleasure of welcoming the talented team from DUNA Films to our Greater Manchester site, where they captured our Black Bull Biochar operations in action. Grab some popcorn and enjoy the film! 🍿(https://lnkd.in/ewJHQHQ6). Filmed on-site on a chilly northern November evening, a huge thank you goes to Matilda Thompson. Her skill and patience clearly turned me into the next Jason Statham, and our Innovation Manager Shefali Bagaria into the next Sandra Bullock #SB. Shout outs also go to cameos from Nicholas Hughes on the ops swagger and Darren Christopher F. on the forklift! 🚜 #DrivetoSurvive With the invaluable support of the UK Government’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero NZIP Programme, we’ve built two cutting-edge facilities that not only produce biochar on a commercial scale but also generate and reuse heat. Here, we showcase the first Pyreg GmbH plant in the UK, hosted by our valued partners, Ahlstrom. The heat generated in our biochar production contributes to Ahlstrom's efforts to decarbonize their operations in the Greater Manchester area. 🌍

🤼 Welcome to the squad, Christian McKenna 🤼 We are thrilled to announce that Christian McKenna has joined our team as Project Manager! 🎉   Christian is a results-focused project manager with experience in large-scale programme management and start-up environments. He is an energetic, team-oriented professional who likes to bring structure while also getting his hands dirty (sometimes in the biochar!). 👐   Christian graduated from Agri-Environmental Sciences at University College Dublin (UCD) before completing an MSc in Management at UCD Smurfit. He began his career as a management consultant at KPMG Ireland and as a business analyst for an innovative food ingredients business. His passion for scalable change and expertise in developing and trialling new biochars make him a fantastic addition to our team.   Christian is also a die-hard Manchester United fan. A controversial choice for many but not so problematic for BBB, as he will expand our operations across new projects in the Greater Manchester area! As for Man U, don't worry, Christian, you found us so who knows, maybe Man U will find a goal? ⚽   Shefali, Darren, Nicholas, Megan, Adrien, Hamish, Emma and Alex, please give a big welcome 🌱🌍 #NewTeamMember #Carbonremoval #Biochar #AgriTech

🎉Great to celebrate a big BBB year with our Christmas party in Manchester. Squid Games 🦑 and Xmas dins 🦃, followed by karaoke 🎤… It was good to see everyone’s inner Britney and particularly great to see our latest member of the team, Darren, bringing the Mancunian house down with Oasis's 'Don't Look Back in Anger'!   🏭 Black Bull Biochar hit big milestones this year, with not one but two sites up and running, producing Santa’s special biochar🎅. Next year, we look forward to scaling our partnerships to the next level, particularly in the Greater Manchester area. #carbonfinance #manchester   👏 And a big thank you to my incredible colleagues for your hard graft and commitment (Emma, Shefali, Adrien, Nicholas, Darren, Alex and Hamish). See you all in 2025! 

🎄✨Ho ho holiday cheer at Black Bull Biochar 🎄✨ It was great to welcome our friends from Supercritical to our first pyrolysis unit for their Christmas party. Hosted kindly by Ahlstrom, we were able to showcase the hard work and dedication that goes into the product and systems that we create, particularly when it comes to carbon integrity 💪 Who are Supercritical? Supercritical is revolutionizing the carbon removal market with their commitment to radical transparency. Their marketplace provides live pricing and availability data, ensuring businesses can make informed decisions with confidence. Trusted by forward-thinking companies like The Economist and Virgin Atlantic, Supercritical is driving immediate climate action and helping to scale carbon dioxide removal to meet global targets. 🎯 Our founders, Hamish Creber and Alex Clarke share a similar vision to Michelle You and Aaron Randall. Trust and transparency are fundamental to the success of the carbon removal industry. 🤝 A big thank you to the Supercritical team for joining us. We look forward to more collaboration with you in the future, and we hope you enjoyed your biochar-coal from Santa! 🎅

🎄✨Ho ho holiday cheer at Black Bull Biochar 🎄✨ It was great to welcome our friends from Supercritical to our first pyrolysis unit for their Christmas party. Hosted kindly by Ahlstrom, we were able to showcase the hard work and dedication that goes into the product and systems that we create, particularly when it comes to carbon integrity 💪 Who are Supercritical? Supercritical is revolutionizing the carbon removal market with their commitment to radical transparency. Their marketplace provides live pricing and availability data, ensuring businesses can make informed decisions with confidence. Trusted by forward-thinking companies like The Economist and Virgin Atlantic, Supercritical is driving immediate climate action and helping to scale carbon dioxide removal to meet global targets. 🎯 Our founders, Hamish Creber and Alex Clarke share a similar vision to Michelle You and Aaron Randall. Trust and transparency are fundamental to the success of the carbon removal industry. 🤝 A big thank you to the Supercritical team for joining us. We look forward to more collaboration with you in the future, and we hope you enjoyed your biochar-coal from Santa! 🎅

BBB Level Up - Site #2 #Commissioned 🚀 Just the other month, another big milestone popped up. Little ol’ Black Bull Biochar is not so little. With our second site up and running, we have quadrupled our output. This is game-changing for the UK biochar industry. With one site, we proved a concept, our operational skills, and the efficacy of our tailored biochar product. But with two sites, we start to realize our vision of a network of biochar production sites across the UK, removing gigatonnes of carbon, and improving millions of hectares of farmland 🌍. Welcome to A. W. Jenkinson Forest Products’s Newton Rigg, a former Agricultural College in Cumbria, which now hosts the first C500-I pyrolyser ever made by BioMaCon GmbH. This is the first Biomacon to enter the UK market and the largest ever built. A huge thank you goes to Thomas Jakob Hoffmann from Decarbo-Engineering GmbH for enabling this journey and to Ulrich Suer of Biomacon for providing us with this excellent bit of kit 🔧. Prior to BBB, this shed had a disused district heating system and a defunct biomass boiler. Our pyrolysis unit now supplies renewable heat to an office block and a sports hall. From start to finish, this has been led by my Co-founder, Hamish Creber, and our new Head of Ops, Nicholas Hughes, but huge credit also goes to Daniel Firman for handling design, Alistair Burrowes for project management, Richard Errington for overseeing operations, and David Hodgson for making it happen 🔥. For those who know us well, you will know that partnerships are one of the things that make us special. 9 times out of 10, if you want to deliver impact, your partnerships, team, and customers are more valuable than anything else. We wouldn’t be here without the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero delivering catalytic funding, Ahlstrom for hosting our first site, Pyreg GmbH for our first pyrolyser, Arla Foods for innovating with biochar, SRUC for trialling our products, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) for analysing our results, The University of Edinburgh for modelling our carbon, and dss+ for building our Life Cycle Analysis [pause for breath] 🤝. This is just the start for BBB. As we leverage new funding, we will look to expand all elements of our business. If you want to get in touch to find out more, reach out to Nicholas Hughes & Darren Christopher F. for all things Operations, Megan Evans for finance, Emma Chang for recruitment, Hamish Creber for biochar innovation, Shefali Bagaria for carbon credits, and Adrien Koo for software integration 📈. Last but not least, why are we doing this? Our mission is to rapidly remove carbon and create the highest quality biochar and carbon removal credits in the world. We have plans to remove >40,000 tonnes of carbon per year by 2030 and the beauty of biochar is that it can be done now. This is not a wing and a prayer. This is real. You just need a great team, great partnerships and a great biochar system 🌱.

Last week, Agrecalc launched its upgraded biochar module to its >10,000 users. 🧑🌾   This marks the first time biochar’s on-farm impacts beyond carbon sequestration have been included in a nationally-recognised carbon footprinting tool. It is an exciting leap forward for carbon accounting in agriculture, providing farm owners with an advanced tool to make data-driven decisions for sustainable land management using biochar. 🌾   Thanks to everyone who contributed Hamish Creber, Julian Bell, Rachael Ramsey, Thomas Jenkins, Paul Hargreaves. Excited to see the new module in action!

🎉 ...Team News... 🎉 We are delighted to announce the promotion of Megan Evans to Head of Finance! 🌟  Over the past two years, Meg has demonstrated exceptional skill and dedication, expertly managing all aspects of our project finance at BBB while developing ground-breaking financial models for the future. 📊 Not only has Meg excelled in handling finances, but she has also been a tremendous support to the entire team, always ready to lend a hand in other areas of the company. 🤝 Navigating the unique challenges of a start-up environment, where each day is different, Meg has thrived, demonstrating remarkable growth and a passion for learning. 🌱 Her professionalism and energy are why we have promoted her to Head of Finance.🚀 Thanks to our brilliant team (Nicholas Hughes, Hamish Creber Alex Clarke Emma Claughton Shefali Bagaria Adrien Koo Darren Christopher F.), BBB has achieved remarkable milestones so far 🪨 As we look to the future, we are confident that our finances are in excellent hands with Meg at the helm. 👩✈️ Please join us in congratulating our new Head of Finance on this well-earned promotion! 🎊