Cetogenix on their ‘one to five’ punch which turns waste into profit while producing energy

Caffeine Daily and Ara Ake have partnered up to highlight stories from the energy innovation sector. Article orginally published on Caffeine Daily on 1 April 2025.

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Turning crap into cash might sound like a pipe dream, all puns intended, but for Rotorua-based startup Cetogenix, it’s becoming a reality.

Founded by researchers from Scion, the company initially focused on forestry waste, pivoted to wastewater treatment and landfill avoidance, then to a broader waste-to-value approach. .

“We realized that the world now needed waste management technology that could deal with the nature of waste, generate value, and make money, " co-founder Trevor Stuthridge told Caffeine.

“We had a light bulb moment where our technology could be pivoted into a containerized disruptive technology turning waste into high-value materials. Investors agreed, and we started Cetogenix.”

The secret is Ceto-Boost, a solution which uses a process called hydrothermal oxidation, involving water at high pressures and temperatures which breaks down organic waste spontaneously when oxygen is added.

“It's essentially combustion in water,” Stuthridge told Caffeine, explaining that one of Ceto-Boost’s by-products can even become an energy producer following this combustion.

“We've learned to control this combustion to produce acetic acid or vinegar, which can then be fed to bacteria to produce methane. Our technology allows us to make 40% more gas than existing methods.”

Acetic acid in particular is a valuable component in green supply chains, meaning Ceto-Boost provides critical resources for emerging tech like green hydrogen.

While there are other waste to energy proposals out there, Ceto-Boost has some key benefits compared to its competitors.

Organic waste is typically ‘wet, complex, contaminated, and distributed.’ This usually means it requires a lot of energy to break down, is logistically difficult to apply technology solutions to and requires careful processing to eliminate toxicity.

Ceto-Boost eliminates all organic waste, leaving only biogas, green ammonia, phosphorus fertilizer, and clean water. It is also energy positive, recovering energy from the waste through the production of acetic acid and natural gas.

Since it is ‘containerized and plug-and-play’, it is easy to implement with existing systems by requiring minimal land area and no shutdown of existing operations.

And as the world continues to grapple with the shocking level of microplastics leeching into our water and soil, Ceto-Boost even destroys microplastics in waste, meaning they can’t return into the environment.

“It's a one-to-five punch: bigger volumes, higher gas yields, lower operating costs, fewer regulatory barriers, and retained nutrient value," says Stuthridge.

“We see a $110 billion market in Europe alone and an $18 billion market in the US. We'd be happy with just 10% of that market.”

While he’s optimistic about the scale of the opportunity, Stuthridge is clear eyed about the challenges ahead - namely changing minds in an industry that can be slow to move.

“The waste management industry is conservative and needs to see the technology operating in the market at pilot scale. It's a catch-22: we need to get it operating to show it works, but they want to see it working before we deploy it. We're partnering with large companies to get our plants on the ground for demonstration.”

Cetogenix completed a $4.8m seed raise in July 2022 with New Zealand investors and currently has employees but is looking to scale up. It has a working prototype with another under construction.

The company has four pilot demonstration-scale trials across NZ, the UK, and the US with a series A raise of $4.5 million underway to deliver on these trials, with the goal of first commercial sales in early 2027.

Stuthridge said Cetogenix has ‘an international lead investor’ onboard but is keeping mum about who that might be as yet. But while he has his eyes internationally, he says there is still scope for Cetogenix to have a profound impact at home.

“There's a growing demand in New Zealand for renewable natural gas and New Zealand's going to have to find a way to do renewable natural gas, frankly. That's why we do have at least one commercial client now in the farming industry who wants to build one of our plants.”

“We'll have to adopt a new model for how to do that. We're excited because actually our technology makes that model work. And that model basically is multiple waste streams going to a centralized facility where you get critical mass, generate enough gas to make it economic and you eliminate that waste stream. That's what our technology does. So we're very excited.”

Based on their current trajectory, investors are too. If Cetogenix truly cracks the formula for turning poop into profit, I think this will be far from the last we hear of them.

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