PORTLAND, Maine — Maine Standard Biofuels (MSB), a Maine biorefinery that recycles cooking oil into fuels and bio-based products, is acquiring Urban Farm Fermentory (UFF), a Portland-based producer of fermented beverages made from locally-grown and foraged ingredients. The purchase of UFF furthers MSB’s mission of developing businesses built on the regenerative systems critical to enduring sustainability. The sale is the result of longstanding discussions between MSB owner Jarmin Kaltsas and UFF founder Eli Cayer. Cayer will serve as a consultant to Kaltsas until the conditions of the sale are complete.
Both men started their companies with a passion for serving local customers with products that reflect their deep respect for the natural world. Kaltsas built a business that refines potential pollutants into clean-burning biofuels and cleaners. Cayer crafted fermented beverages that captured the authentic taste of wild Maine-grown ingredients.
Years of shared ideas on practices that mimic nature’s efficiency eventually led to the pair’s decision for a sale that would plant the seed for a collaborative business model that sets new standards for triple-bottom-line sustainability.
“Maine Standard Biofuels is excited to conclude our purchase of Urban Farm Fermentory at the end of this calendar year,” said Jarmin Kaltsas, owner of MSB. “We believe that bringing together two established, community-minded organizations with missions centered around sustainability will have a strong, positive impact on the Portland business community well into the future.”
The two companies will anchor a state-of-the-art 12-acre green industrial park that MSB is building along the banks of the Presumpscot River in Windham, Maine. The site’s foundation will include agricultural fields engineered with living soils. Herbs for UFF beverages will be grown there, along with plants for the essential oils used in the upcycled cleaning products MSB sells under its “Second Power” brand, as well as incubator sites for like-minded start-ups.
Optimum efficiency will be achieved through shared back-office operations, sales, and synergistic design strategies that reclaim waste heat and byproducts for processing power. Corporate and public audiences will be welcomed for educational visits to the production facility and future tasting room.
But the full power of the park’s synchronized systems will extend far beyond its groundbreaking campus. A planned network of satellite facilities will be explored as common connection points for MSB’s used cooking oils and vetted as potential markets for Second Power’s cleaners and UFF’s extensive menu of fermented beverages.
Changes in product compositions would be explored to harvest local ingredients when this model scales to serve other markets. Native plants would yield new tastes for UFF’s drinks and fresh scents for MSB’s Second Power cleaning products. The flexibility to design these hubs around local market needs and the learning fostered to meet them will provide the holistic perspective critical to creating the closed, biodynamic-based business system Kaltsas and Cayer have in mind.
For Cayer, the chance to achieve that vision prompted his decision to sell the company he’s guided to success. “My trust in Jarmin’s business expertise and his expansion of MSB’s regional hubs and environmental mission assures me that this is the next, natural move for UFF.” For his part, Kaltsas shares Cayer’s excitement about the future this move is designed to inspire. “We’re motivated to continue to expand our waste to energy systems regionally, as well as develop and offer innovative products. But our ultimate goal is to create a scalable business model built on local sustainability that can play a part in the global change needed to sustain our world.”
–Northeast Media Associates
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES
AUGUSTA, Maine — Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry (DACF) Commissioner Amanda Beal and Bureau of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources Director Nancy McBrady has announced that the department would host two dozen Maine-owned businesses and organizations in the Maine Building at the Big E in West Springfield, Massachusetts. The Maine building is located on […]
INDIANAPOLIS — Winners of the 2021 Agricultural Proficiency Awards were named during multiple sessions of the 94th National FFA Convention & Expo, Oct. 27-30, which was held in Indianapolis. Agricultural Proficiency Awards honor FFA members who, through supervised agricultural experiences (SAEs), have developed specialized skills that they can apply toward their future careers. Students compete in areas […]
ORONO, Maine — A new testing lab at the University of Maine will help state landowners monitor their trees for the presence of the destructive eastern spruce budworm, a key step in tracking and mitigating a developing outbreak that could have severe impacts on Maine’s forest land and economy. Angela Mech, UMaine assistant professor of […]
AUGUSTA, Maine — Commissioner Amanda Beal and the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry’s Agriculture Resource Development Division (ARD) announced $248,757 in Agriculture Development Grants (ADG) to innovative Maine businesses. ARD oversees Maine’s ADG program, which supports market research, promotion, and testing and demonstrating new technologies. ARD has awarded nearly two million dollars in […]
AUGUSTA, Maine — As part of Maine’s ambitious effort to fight climate change by reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions, Governor Janet Mills has signed an Executive Order to create the Maine Forest Carbon Task Force. The Task Force is a recommendation from the state’s new four-year climate action plan, Maine Won’t Wait, and aims to develop a […]
