One of the most common questions we're asked is: “What do you all do?” Greasecycle collects used cooking oil, refines it, and sources it as a feedstock into the biodiesel industry. We also pump out and clean restaurant grease traps & jet the lines to keep our customers’ kitchens clean & odor-free. We render out usable brown grease from the grease trap’s mixture of water, food solids, and grease. The “ brown grease'' is then sold as bunker fuel for ships. All wastewater is processed and the food solids are composted locally.
Providing restaurants with clean, secure, and easy-to-use oil collection containers helps keep the restaurants sanitary and safe. Pumping out and cleaning grease traps keeps restaurants compliant with their local municipality and free of bad odors or drain backups that can be quite disruptive to business. Our combined services keep restaurants clean, green, and efficient. Consolidating our services eliminates some of the many headaches that inevitably arise from running a successful restaurant and we’re more than happy to help.
In 2008, Founder & President, Dylan Gehrken, graduated from the University of Virginia with a Degree in Economics and he quickly noticed that all of his most intelligent classmates were pursuing careers in three categories: finance, medicine, or law. Dylan knew he wanted to do something that all of these very smart and ambitious people weren’t doing. Following this line of thought to its logical conclusion, Dylan set out to start some type of waste-related business with a specific focus on helping conserve resources.
In 2009, Dylan started Greasecycle® with one windowless van, a few blank contracts, and a hunger to get all the grease. What started as a dream has turned into a reality. In 2012 Greasecycle built its own processing facility in East Raleigh and has continued to expand, grow, and revolutionize the industry ever since.
Today, Greasecycle employs almost 30 employees and services NC territories spanning from the coast to the Queen City and beyond. Within a decade, Greasecycle went from just one man doing sales, accounting, and collections in one creepy, windowless van and morphed into a company with strong values, a fantastic team, a fleet of service vehicles (all with windows, of course), and thousands loyal customers.
It is a dirty, smelly, unglamorous business. We turn challenging insidious waste streams into valuable low-carbon resources. Call us crazy, but there is something about the fundamental nature of this business that we just REALLY love.
In 2017, Greasecycle moved its office operations and truck maintenance department into a building of its own. Plans to open an additional facility in the Charlotte region are in the works for the end of 2021.
Greasecycle is a well-oiled machine that credits so much of its success to the dedication & strength of our team. We’ve built our company based on 4 Core Values & we ensure that each addition to the team embodies these four characteristics:
Although our part-time staff and interns are not listed here, they are just as crucial to our success as the full-time team members listed below.