Kumar Plocher, CEO and founder of Yokayo Biofuels Inc., a small 500,000 gallon per year biodiesel facility in Northern California, is not only confident in his long-term business plan, he&rsquo;s excited. His plan features feedstock acquisition, infrastructure enhancement and new hires, and the five-year overall growth outlook is not linked to any sort of biodiesel tax incentive. But it doesn&rsquo;t hurt that Plocher and his team were recent recipients of a $24,000 USDA Bioenergy payment for advanced biofuels producers. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s definitely going to help us expand,&rdquo; Plocher says, admitting that Yokayo&rsquo;s expansion efforts started earlier in 2011. &ldquo;In the past year we&rsquo;ve grown our staff tremendously,&rdquo; he adds. &ldquo;We went from 10 employees last year to 18 right now and I can see us adding another five or 10 in the next year.&rdquo;
The eight additional employees might not seem important, but the expansion at Yokayo Biofuels has drawn the attention of U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif. &ldquo;Yokayo Biofuels is a model of how green businesses can grow our economy,&rdquo; Thompson said after Yokayo received the USDA funding.
With added employees, Plocher&rsquo;s plans for 2012 involve hiring new drivers for waste vegetable oil collection and installing more efficient processing equipment. &ldquo;We are looking at getting beyond some of the older types of processes,&rdquo; he says. And the combination of new technology at his Ukiah, Calif., facility, additional feedstock supply possibilities and more employees are all contributing to his excitement about the new year. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good time for us to be getting exposure,&rdquo; he says of local press and Thompson&rsquo;s recognition of their award. Plocher&rsquo;s not worried about life without an incentive: he&rsquo;s focused on the business of biodiesel, securing feedstock and producing gallons, hiring extra drivers and installing new, more efficient technology. Last year was a productive and economically positive year for biodiesel, as Plocher&rsquo;s story exemplifies. If everyone else in the industry approaches 2012 with the same excitement as he, 2012 will be business as usual.
&mdash;Luke Geiver

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For this northern California producer, business is good

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