Introduction
At Kumar, our customers operate in the edible oils and fats industry, where oilseeds and other plant-based oleaginous materials serve as the primary input. The industry’s raw materials being agricultural commodities, we see first-hand the effects of climate change on the industry – fluctuating availability of raw materials, fluctuating prices and a general unpredictability surrounding supply chains.
Additionally, estimates suggest that the way we live and consume now uses 60% more resources than the Earth can provide. Naturally, over time, how much we have available to us will reduce. And the amount of waste that we have to manage? That might just overwhelm us.
At Kumar, we are keenly aware of this reality. And we have always deeply valued the resources available to our customers. That’s why our engineering solutions have always endeavoured to help our customers make the most of their resources – in terms of finances, energy and raw materials. In our bid to achieve these outcomes, we find it natural to use “waste” as a resource, to convert what others think of as waste into valuable products.
In a sense, we have always recognised the importance of and worked to create a circular economy.
Bridging the R&D gap
When I returned home to join the family business, my focus was on waste reduction – I wanted to cut unproductive work, minimise costs, and improve timelines across the product life cycle. But as I gained more experience in the business, I noticed the snail’s pace at which the industry had moved over the past few decades—and this seemed natural. When it comes to capital goods, a complete overhaul doesn’t happen overnight; it is built steadily, with small innovations that compound over time.
I was convinced that not only Kumar but the capital goods engineering industry as a whole needed more creativity, more innovation. That’s how our Innovation Centre was developed.
The OM Innovation Centre is our engine of innovation. From its first project of developing a multi-purpose specialty shea butter fractionation plant to developing sustainable solutions for a diversity of oilseeds, oils and fats, the Centre has come a long way in a very short time. As we nurture Kumar to reach greater heights, the OM Innovation Centre has emerged as more than a research centre – it has given us a platform and seeded an innovation-centred thought process in every team member at Kumar. It is the starting point for a lot more innovation to come, with food, feed, fuel, and the circular economy front and centre.
The need for a circular economy
Circular economies, characterised by the principles of “reduce, reuse, recycle”, contrast linear economies which “take, make, consume, and discard” the limited resources the world has to work with.
Circular economies can take diverse approaches. These generally vary by industry, culture and feasibility. Nevertheless, circular economy practices draw from some foundational ideas, with the importance of waste reduction being key.
By using materials as long as possible, circular economies are less resource-intensive. By creating waste-to-value products, they circumvent traditional economic models which mine limited resources and convert them into products which become waste sooner rather than later. By reducing the use of harmful products, circular economies minimise the negative lifecycle impacts of the products that we use.
Circular economy refers to more than one element of a supply chain. It is more than an isolated activity; it is more than a few figures meant for ESG reports. A circular economy is a holistic approach, a philosophy that protects the environment and ensures social justice while delivering the highest possible value to customers.
We believe that participating in circular economies is the only truly sustainable way to do business, environmentally and economically. It goes beyond just ethics; at the end of the day, it is about the value of your business in the long run. It is a way of building resilience into your business model, generating new opportunities, and remaining relevant in not only a rapidly evolving edible oils industry but also a rapidly changing world.
Waste to Wealth by Accenture Strategy estimates that a circular economy could unlock USD 4.5 trillion of value i.e. 4 to 5% of the projected global GDP, as early as 2030. Now who wouldn’t want a slice of that pie?
Accelerating waste-to-value innovation
Use less, use longer, use again and make clean. The Circle Economy Foundation specifies these key circular economy principles that we must adopt to achieve a 33% reduction in material extraction and consumption.
At Kumar, we aim to be an industry leader in circular economy, so we don’t take these principles lightly.
We use less. Our OM Innovation Centre, developed as our go-to R&D space in recent years, is committed to reducing resource use – time, energy and raw materials – in all of our projects and product lines. This means that by choosing Kumar, you, too, contribute to the circular economy.
We use longer. Our equipment uses the highest quality stainless steel and has as few wear-and-tear parts as possible. These factors ensure the longevity of our products, reducing material use in the long run and ensuring stress-free smooth operations for you.
We use again. Take our solvent extraction plants, for instance. The hexane used in a cycle of oil extraction is recovered and then reused in subsequent cycles. We have some of the highest solvent recovery rates in the industry, greatly reducing costs for this essential input. Efficient solvent recovery also prevents hexane from being released as waste, which would add to the already high burdens of effluent pollution.
At Kumar, we make clean. When oilseeds are processed, from seed preparation to oil refining, extraneous materials or by-products are generated. Think hulls, stalks, oilseed cake, gums, soap stock, and spent bleaching earth. These by-products as well as used cooking oil have applications across industries like oleochemicals, animal feed, green fuels, pharmaceuticals and beyond.
As much as possible, we develop technologies that enable our customers to convert this waste to value, all while recognizing the importance of waste reduction. For instance, our biodiesel plant has multi-feedstock options, reduced catalyst and utility consumption and high conversion rates, all while producing very little effluent.
Across our product portfolio, you can see the massive economic value of a circular economy. Using waste as a resource reduces companies’ cost of waste management. Waste-to-value practices generate additional revenue without you having to purchase raw materials from external suppliers. They provide resilience against demand fluctuations and maximise the value that you can extract from the world’s precious limited resources.
Kumar’s waste-to-resource projects
The current generation of Manaktalas, my brothers and I, want to build Kumar into an innovation-led company. Our 3FCE path is being shaped to a large degree by our pursuit of new intellectual properties.
We are actively developing technologies that help refineries become eco-friendly, ensuring higher yields, lower energy consumption, and reduced carbon footprint. Our waste-to-value approach in upstream and downstream processes allows customers to convert byproducts into revenue-boosting, waste-minimizing products, positively impacting their bottom line.
Our Innovation Centre is a testament to this commitment, serving as a hub for developing new technologies and refining processes that cater to the ever-evolving market needs.
One of our latest projects is a 200 TPD oleochemical fatty acid fractionation plant for a major palm oil player in Indonesia. With our highly customised design, we are delivering an efficient plant for a specific feed industry application.
One of our projects in Bulgaria delivered not only a sunflower oil refinery but also a lecithin plant to maximise the value generated from a single resource.
On the whole, we have technologies for not only all stages of the edible oil extraction process but also for biodiesel, hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) pre-treatment, fat modification, feed mills, oleochemicals, biomass pelletization, and other value-added products. When we don’t already have the technology available to process a certain source of oils, fats or their by-products, the dedicated team at our OM Innovation Centre gets to work to develop custom solutions for our customers.
In our mission to convert waste to value, we have expanded our range of technology offerings. We believe there is no better way for us to walk the path of sustainability as we transition more fully into a circular economy.
The transformative power of waste-to-value products
The circular economy and waste-to-value products have the power to transform the world as we know it. They have the power to slow the progress of climate change, capture untapped economic value, and improve bottom lines. In essence, a circular economy can decouple consumption and resource extraction from economic growth.
Making the most of the waste-to-value principle depends on a change in systems. It calls for a fundamental shift in the way we do business. We believe that high-quality engineering and innovation lie at the heart of it all.
Research has shown that startups that seek to build scalable ideas while simultaneously tackling system change can have an outsized impact on entire industries. Though not a startup, we are convinced that our innovations, whether they are radical or incremental, can change the oils and fats processing industry for good. By embedding sustainability into the core of our business i.e. our product portfolio, we’ve made participation in a circular economy a given for our customers. We’ve brought sustainability from being a peripheral concern in our industry to being an integral part of our DNA.
The Kumar way of doing things is disruptive, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Through all that we make and do, we want to bring circularity and its transformative impact to the edible oils industry. We envision a future in which true sustainability isn’t an add-on, but a part of daily life, of business-as-usual not just in our factories and offices, but across the global oils and fats industry.
With Kumar, you have the opportunity to leverage waste-to-value innovations and their massive economic potential. It’s an opportunity you wouldn’t want to miss.
