Feedstock fever in America’s gas market

Vanguard Renewables buys a Florida waste site to lock in feedstock and strengthen its renewable gas supply

17 Nov 2025

The scramble for renewable natural gas (RNG) in America is turning oddly discreet assets, waste bins and expired drinks, into prized commodities. Vanguard Renewables’ purchase of Complete Beverage Destruction, a waste-processing firm in Dade City, Florida, is less about expanding southward than tightening its grip on dependable feedstock.

Each day the site takes in around 200 tons of unsellable drinks from big consumer brands and converts them into steady inputs for biogas. Folding the facility into its network gives Vanguard, backed by Global Infrastructure Partners and now part of BlackRock, a firmer hold on a resource that is becoming scarcer. The firm says the acquisition improves its ability to offer partners stable disposal services and cleaner energy options.

Such caution is sensible. Demand for RNG is rising, driven by transport needs, stricter climate rules and ever louder corporate sustainability targets. Developers are building digesters designed to produce pipeline grade gas, which makes the reliability of inputs as important as the machinery that cleans and compresses the output. Florida, with its expanding food and drink sector and modest organics infrastructure, offers ample material for firms seeking scale.

Industry analysts note that beverage waste has particular appeal: it is abundant, predictable and untouched by the seasonal swings that bedevil agricultural inputs. As Patrick Serfass of the American Biogas Council puts it, securing feedstock has become "as essential as building digestion systems", a shift that is reshaping strategy across the sector.

The model has drawbacks. Waste-handling plants must comply with strict rules, and some worry that consolidation could edge out smaller developers that lack the capital to secure long-term supplies. But the reaction to Vanguard’s move has been broadly upbeat. Many see it as evidence that the market, once a niche of enthusiastic engineers and hopeful investors, is gaining maturity.

As money and attention flow into RNG, the firms that best integrate waste collection, processing and gas production are likely to set the pace. Vanguard’s latest deal hints at where the industry is heading: towards tighter control of feedstock, bigger networks and faster growth.