SKS – De Saegher

The De Saegher family started with just 35 milking cows in 1999 and have since expanded to several thousand cows at multiple locations. The De Saeghers have been innovative and ambitious in growing their dairy operation, keeping the local community and environmental sustainability at the forefront of their decision making. The family’s decision to add an anaerobic digestion facility was a natural next step in ensuring the dairy would benefit future generations. The project processes manure in above ground, complete-mixed anaerobic digesters, generating and capturing raw gas that is upgraded to RNG for injection into a nearby pipeline. Because the dairy primarily uses sand for animal bedding, integrating sand-manure separation prior to anaerobic digestion allows the farm to come full circle, returning sustainable bedding material to the stalls and thickened influent to the digester. Additional byproducts resulting from the process, including reuse water, carbon dioxide and organic fertilizer, are utilized for agricultural and industrial applications.