Pittsburgh-based Optimus Technologies has partnered with Sunoil Biodiesel to bring 100% biodiesel to heavy-duty fleets in the Netherlands. It is another sign that global demand for UCO-based biodiesel is expanding, and that the feedstock supply chain connecting restaurants to refineries is becoming more valuable by the day.
What happened
Optimus Technologies, the company behind the patented Vector System that allows heavy-duty diesel engines to run on pure biodiesel, has teamed up with Sunoil Biodiesel, one of Europe's leading biodiesel producers. The partnership will deploy B100 technology in heavy-duty fleet operations across the Netherlands.
This is a significant move. Optimus has already logged over 35 million miles on B100 with fleets in the U.S. and Canada, working with companies like ADM, PepsiCo, Chevron, and municipal fleets in Washington D.C., Madison, and Chicago. The Mitsui partnership expanded their reach into Japan, India, and Southeast Asia. Now the Netherlands adds Europe to the map.
Why Sunoil matters to this story
Sunoil is not just any biodiesel producer. Founded in 2005, the company built the first biodiesel plant in the Netherlands. Since 2007, it has exclusively processed used cooking oil and animal fats as feedstock. Sunoil only produces UCOME, which stands for Used Cooking Oil Methyl Ester. That is biodiesel made entirely from UCO.
The company operates production facilities in Emmen and Kampen and serves markets across the Netherlands, continental Europe, Scandinavia, and the UK. Its biodiesel achieves roughly 85 percent CO2 reduction compared to conventional diesel.
In other words, every gallon of B100 that Optimus-equipped trucks burn in the Netherlands is made from used cooking oil.
Why this matters for UCO collectors and processors
This partnership is another data point in a growing trend. The end markets for used cooking oil keep expanding.
Every time a fleet adopts B100 instead of standard diesel or even B20, it is consuming five times more biodiesel per truck. That is five times the feedstock demand per vehicle. When you multiply that across hundreds of trucks in a heavy-duty fleet, the feedstock math gets very real very fast.
Sunoil runs entirely on UCO. If B100 adoption scales across European fleets the way Optimus is projecting, the demand pull on UCO supply in Europe will intensify. That has implications globally, because UCO is an internationally traded commodity. When European demand rises, it tightens supply everywhere, including in the U.S.
For UCO collectors and grease processors, this is the bigger picture. It is not just the EPA's new RVO mandate driving demand. It is not just New Mexico's clean fuel program. It is a global shift toward higher-blend biodiesel and renewable diesel, and all of it runs on the same feedstock you are collecting every day.
The bottom line
The Optimus and Sunoil partnership is another signal that used cooking oil is becoming one of the most strategically important commodities in the energy transition. More fleets running on B100 means more biodiesel production, which means more demand for UCO at every level of the supply chain.
Whether you collect grease from restaurants in Texas or process UCO in the Midwest, the global market for your product just got a little bigger.
