An Australian university is turning tonnes of kitchen scraps into high-value fertiliser that is being sold to farmers in Asia.

James Cook University has become the first university in Australia to pioneer an innovative food waste disposal system known as the Bio-Regen.

Designed and patented by Townsville-based company VRM, the machine grinds up food waste and mixes it with water and an inoculant containing special microbes.

The resulting liquid is left to ferment in tanks for 28 days, after which it is collected by VRM and sold to farmers as a nutrient rich bio-fertiliser.

A tonne of waste a week

JCU environment manager Adam Connell said the system processed up to a tonne of food waste from three of the university's commercial kitchens each week.

"It was costing a huge amount of money to send this food to landfill and we said 'there's got to be a better way to do this'," he said.

The food waste comes from three of the university's commercial kitchens. ( ABC North Queensland: Tom Edwards )

"So we spoke to VRM … and they had been looking to trial this process throughout South East Asia … and we said we'd like to have a go at the university."

Not all food products can be processed by the Bio-Regen system.

The machine has difficulty with large quantities of cooked chicken bones and fibrous materials such as corn husks, eggshells and onion skins.

Those items and larger food waste products are processed by an alternative system known as the Groundswell.

Storage time enriches product

Green waste is stored in large bays where it is sprayed with microbes and left for six months to break down and become a humus-rich top soil.

Mr Connell said there was little doubt as to the quality of the final product, with farmers paying around $200 a tonne for the potent humisoil.

JCU environment manager Adam Connell says the Bio-Regen and Groundswell system has saved the university thousands of dollars. ( ABC North Queensland: Tom Edwards )

"Both the liquid fertiliser and the humisoil are really concentrated," he said.

"We're diluting the bio-fertiliser one in 40 (with water). We use it on our community garden and one of our sporting fields here.

"It's not just the nutrients; it's the microbes that activate the soil and release the nutrients that are in there.

"With the humisoil, you're looking at adding one part humisoil to 10 parts sand and that's enough to provide what we need."

Microbes 'feed off each other'

Using microbes to break down food waste typically produces carbon dioxide and methane, but VRM's Gil Napper said the Bio-Regen and Groundswell addressed this issue.

"In the past, the problem's been you've had concentrated certain microbes that do a certain job and not the rest and that's where you get the negative impact," he said.

VRM's Gil Napper says the company expects Australian farmers to follow in the foot steps of its Asian customers. ( ABC North Queensland: Tom Edwards )

"Our system is focussed on the total process, so we have the good and bad which balances it out.

"If you have a select few microbes, once they've eaten what they want they die off.

"With a total ecosystem they … create their own community and they feed off each other."

Mr Napper said he expected the early buy-in of Asian farmers to spark interest from more Australian farmers and he was already in talks with several major agricultural players.