A BALLINGRY company is hoping that the first quarter of 2019 will see several major breakthroughs in sales of its pace-setting equipment.

Peel Tech is part of the Ivan Wood and Sons organisation, based at Eastfield, Navity, and the water filtration system for food processing developed by the organisation can help chip shops and food processors who send contaminated effluent into the drainage system.

The success of the system has seen 87 machines purchased so far to fight pollution of the drainage system and there are hopes that Peel Tech will be widely used in Ireland, Dubai and Germany within the next few weeks.

Malcolm Wood, who came up with the Peel Tech filtration idea, has been involved in the sales campaign and he told Cowdenbeath Rotary Club, on Thursday, about how an idea that started in his own garage, had developed into an award winning system.

He explained how Ivan Wood and Sons had developed from a small family business, started by his father, selling good quality potatoes, leeks and turnips around the doors of homes in Benarty and Lochgelly in the 1970s, into an operation which employs 38 people supplying top quality vegetables and fruit to the Scottish catering industry using water from a spring discovered on their Navity site.

Said Malcolm: “Through our big food processing operation we became aware of the effluent that was going into the drains which sometimes caused blockages and it was not something that a green thinking company wanted.

“It may seem strange but there was no system available to clean up the effluent so I started to think how this could be tackled. Strangely the idea how we could do it came to me in the early hours of one morning and I climbed into my clothes and went into the garage and that was the start.

“We managed to put together a prototype which worked reasonably well, and with the assistance of staff at Abertay University, the system advanced, and we patented the design and soon had machines in operation at chip shops helping take the strain off drainage systems.

“The tightening up of Waste Regulations on both sides of the border saw chip shop businesses concerned about how to avoid £10,000 fines and we have seen a number of machines being bought by chip shop owners.”

He explained how the system works: “It takes waste from the potato peeler, separating waste skin and compacting the starch and removing the waste for recycling and power flushing the clean water down the drain.

“We have been delighted with the interest shown in the UK and have spent time in Germany and Dubai as well as Ireland where we hope to complete deals in the coming weeks.”

Malcolm revealed that Peel Tech had won 18 awards while Ivan Wood and Sons had collected 12 over the past few years and he said it was all down to an excellent staff who worked very hard to ensure both set-ups worked very successfully.