Spanish non-profit organization AZTI-Tecnalia (Technological Centre specialised in Marine and Food Research) have successfully tested the potential use of plant and food by-products that are currently discarded as waste as an ingredient in compound feed. These by- products from commercial production (including fruit, vegetables, potatoes, coffee and bread), can be processed into animal feed instead of being thrown away as trash, the group of researchers stated.
A substantial percentage of the roughly twenty-five thousand tonnes of vegetable by-products end up in landfills. This has spurred AZTI-Tecnalia to initiate it's "Clean Feed" project, which has just completed its second phase.
After identifying the waste materials that can be used, technicians tried a number of technologies for drying out and processing the by-products into animal feed. They estimated that roughly 70 percent of the twenty-five thousand tonnes that are currently treated as waste could be converted to feed.
Besides the environmental value, the clean feed project will strengthen the feed industry by developing new quality feed, the group said.
The project is targeted toward bringing down the amount of feed grains, such as soybean and wheat, used in feed manufacturing. As these types of raw materials experience widely fluctuating market prices and are not locally sourced, with most of them being imported from South America.
The plant by-products AZTI-Tecnalia selected for the clean feed project were fruit and vegetable remains, remains of potatoes, coffee roaster husks, breadrumbs, apple pulp and residual by-products from wineries.
