Buffalo Biodiesel expands executive team for $300 million growth push

Buffalo Biodiesel on June 17 expanded its executive team as part of a $300 million growth push backed by Verite Capital Partners. Frank V. Balon was named president and chief legal officer as the company prepares to widen its used-cooking-oil network from 15 states to 25.

Balon’s appointment was confirmed by the board on June 2. He spent 15 years at Steuben Foods Inc. in Elma, New York, where he helped scale the workforce from 400 to nearly 800 employees, and he earned a J.D. from the University at Buffalo School of Law in 2002. The hire signals that Buffalo Biodiesel is putting legal execution, operating discipline and capital structuring at the center of a business that is moving beyond collection.

The company’s earlier Oct. 24, 2025 partnership announcement said Verite Capital founder Don Jones would become a minority owner and chairman when funding is fully completed. That same plan called for two new renewable natural gas plants, one in the Northeast and one in Mississippi, plus a three-stage expansion across all states east of the Mississippi and a network stretching from Montreal to Miami. Buffalo Biodiesel said the program would create more than 600 jobs.

Buffalo Biodiesel already says it serves more than 30,000 restaurants across 15 states through one of the largest used cooking oil collection operations in the Northeast. The company has also described its network in other materials as more than 25,000 businesses across 15 states, underscoring how quickly the collection footprint is being scaled and marketed as the platform grows.

The move lands in a tightening feedstock market. The International Energy Agency has warned that biodiesel, renewable diesel and biojet fuel producers are headed toward a feedstock supply crunch through 2027 if current trends continue. It projected demand for vegetable oil, waste and residue oils and fats to rise 56% to 79 million tonnes over the forecast period, with wastes and residues supplying 13% of biofuel production in 2027, up from 9% in 2021.

USDA’s Economic Research Service said the United States produced about 3.1 billion gallons of combined biodiesel and renewable diesel in 2022, made from vegetable oils, animal fats, waste oils and greases. For Buffalo Biodiesel, that puts the balance between feedstock access and processing capacity front and center, especially as low-carbon fuel demand keeps pulling more used cooking oil into larger, capital-intensive supply chains.

Buffalo Biodiesel also said its permitting issues with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation were resolved in October 2025, allowing the Tonawanda facility to keep operating while it completed upgrades. The company committed more than $1 million to capital improvements, and in June 2026 said it prevented 685,850 tons of CO2e in 2025 under New York State DEC GWP20 standards, after preventing millions of tons over the last two decades.