Why this Egyptian start-up wants your used cooking oil

Photo: The Green Pan trio. From left: Mariam Afifi (BDO), Nour El-Assal (CEO) and Ahmed Raafat (COO) / Courtesy of Green Pan, Cairo, Egypt

The humble Egyptian lunch of falafel and batates mehamarra (French fries) is fuelling more than just indigestion. Would you believe that the oil used for the preparation of your food is now being used for engines, boilers and even generators too?

The team behind this is Green Pan, a trio of young minds who came up with the idea of collecting used cooking oil from households and converting it into biodiesel.

FUELLING INNOVATION

It all started back in 2013, when friends Ahmed Raafat (now 25) and Nour El Asaal (now 26) were approaching graduation. Their end-of-year project was to find ways to recycle used cooking oil.

“Recycling isn’t very common in our Egyptian culture; eating, however, is,” Ahmed explained. “Our graduation project to turn cooking oil into biodiesel was a new venture we wanted to explore, [as] the most common method for oil disposal in Egypt is pouring the used oil down the drain.

At the same time, Tagaddod, a pioneering renewable energy and waste management firm, was being established in Cairo. The country spends an average of 2.2 billion Egyptian pounds per year on water treatment, and as Ahmed observed, cooking oil was a major factor in this: “Not only does this clog sewers and pipes, [but] eventually it contaminates drinking water and makes its way back into our food cycle.”

This fact alone was enough for Tagaddod to support and launch Green Pan under its umbrella. Ahmed explained, “Tagaddod was running at a bigger scale, now collecting 150 tonnes of used oil from hotels and resorts, factories, manufacturing plants, and malls and restaurants.”

“We wanted to introduce the idea to the average Egyptian household, and so we created Green Pan.”

GREEN LIGHT

Ahmed, Nour and their friend Mariam Afifi kicked off proceedings by reaching out to friends and family to increase awareness. Unfortunately, due to the high cost of the oil collection from homes and the small amount collected (only about 150 litres a month), the campaign stopped. It just wasn’t worth the hassle for that much.

Going back to square one, the team got to work on what they thought was a more sustainable business model. A year later, Green Pan was back in action, collecting 400 litres a month and accommodating all oil collection orders once a month. But this failed too, because the collection process proved to take longer than a day.

“We revisited the idea more than once until we figured out the refined model that would get Green Pan to work efficiently,” Ahmed said.

From September 2016 onwards, the entity was running better than ever. “With a five-litre minimum order, along with an incentive scheme offering one litre of soap for every five litres donated, not to mention beginning with very specific zones in Cairo and using scooters rather than cars, the collection process became easier and more efficient.”

While failure is something no one enjoys, Ahmed admitted that their mishaps only made them appreciate their third attempt more. “The best thing about failing twice was the taste of success the third time around. From our failure, we were able to focus on the core of our project, build a team [with a call centre, delivery boys and collection representatives], improve our logistics and business model, and boost our service.”

FROM EGYPT WITH LOVE

Now Green Pan is collecting in excess of 2,000 litres per month, covering all of Cairo, with plans to launch soon in Alexandria. And with help from  business incubator Flat6Labs, Tagaddod was able to perfect its process and engineer a plant that mass produces and exports biodiesel. The company has now even manufactured its own prototype machine to lower costs.

“Egypt is still exploring the use of biodiesel, and since our supply was larger than the demand and our biodiesel met the international standards, we started exporting biodiesel to EU countries,” Ahmed said. “Biodiesel is the future: it’s the eco-friendly, more sustainable alternative to oil.”

Looking ahead, the social enterprise aims to raise awareness in schools, colleges, and corporates throughout the country, and the team hopes to contribute towards building and establishing a culture of recycling in Egypt.

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