Food Waste Treatment Services - Soft Market Engagement

Plymouth City Council (“The Council”) is currently working on a major project for the implementation of a mandatory weekly food waste service to all Plymouth households by 1 April 2026. The project is a legislatively driven initiative in accordance with section S45A of the Environment Act 1990, brought into legislation by the Environment Act 2021.

As part of this requirement, there will be a need for Transportation, and Treatment of Municipal Food Waste by Anaerobic Digestion (AD).

For that reason, the Council is seeking to engage with the market place, and understand the solutions that may be currently available in the market for these services.

The Council is therefore conducting a soft market assessment to explore these elements and better understand business, technological and innovative solutions that are available. In addition, this will allow the Council to gauge the level of market interest, and on what terms solutions can be delivered.

If your organisation is interested in assisting with the Council's market assessment, then please register your interest to access the soft market test questionnaire via https://www.supplyingthesouthwest.org.uk/ Project reference DN752882.

Please complete the 'Soft Market Questionnaire Response' document, and return it electronically in excel format via the Portal, by 12:00 noon, 15th January 2025.

As a result of the completed questionnaires, some potential providers may be invited to soft market engagement sessions with key Council representatives early in 2025.

The Council reserves the right to limit the number of potential providers invited to these engagement sessions. However, this does not mean that potential providers not invited to attend such a meeting will be excluded from the procurement at that stage.

Any further information surrounding this soft market assessment including any information on the soft market engagement sessions and the Council's aims, objectives and priorities will be made available to all registered parties via https://www.supplyingthesouthwest.org.uk, Project reference DN752882.

This Prior Information Notice (PIN) is an indication of potential future procurement activity and is subject to change. The PIN, soft market test questionnaire and any subsequent market engagement sessions form no part of any pre-qualification or selection process and as such, this implies no commercial commitment by the Council.

Participation in this market engagement exercise is not a requirement for participation in the forthcoming procurement, which shall be formally commenced through publication of a contract notice(s) nearer the time.

Pursuant to Regulation 40 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (as amended) ("PCR 2015"), the Council is seeking to conduct preliminary market engagement before commencing the procurement procedure(s) with the aim of helping the council better prepare the procurement strategy and process, test its assumptions about the scope of the future services.