Ronan Keane, the winner of ReFood’s pioneering waste management scholarship programme – Sustainable Visionaries – has graduated from Huddersfield University with a first class honours degree in Logistics and Supply Chain Management.

Awarded in July 2015, following a comprehensive judging process, the industry-first project saw Ronan compete against undergraduates from across the UK to demonstrate why he believed minimising waste was key to achieving a circular economy.

Receiving a £5,000 scholarship to progress his studies, alongside expert mentoring from the ReFood logistics team, Ronan benefitted from unparalleled access to the company’s logistics data and professional insight.

His dissertation – ‘Increasing the rate of commercial food waste recycling’ – profiled the ReFood business, proposing a new logistics model to make small volume collections more cost-effective. Receiving a first class honours degree, Ronan now plans to take up a full-time career in the logistics sector, focusing on sustainable transportation management.

Philip Simpson, commercial director at ReFood, commented: “As our very first Sustainable Visionary, we’re incredibly proud of Ronan for graduating from Huddersfield University with a first class honours degree.

“With such comprehensive industry understanding, passion for sustainability and a pioneering approach to integrating new ideas into corporate logistics, his talent was obvious from the outset.

“Being able to support his studies and offer advice and guidance to further his professional development over the past 12 months has been an absolute pleasure, and we wish him well for his future career!”

Ronan added: “I can’t thank the ReFood team enough for their ongoing support and guidance throughout my final year at university. The Sustainable Visionaries scholarship has been tremendously beneficial – helping to guide my university studies and provide a stepping stone for my future career in logistics.”

ReFood’s Sustainable Visionaries student scholarship programme is part of an ongoing initiative to eradicate food waste to landfill by 2020. ReFood, which operates food waste recycling services for organisations nationwide, helps companies to lower waste management costs by more than 46% and embrace an environmentally-friendly alternative to traditional disposal processes.