"How much food do we, as society, actually waste?" With this question, Jan Fledderus (Lead Nutritionist) and Evelien Alderliesten (Innovation Manager Piglets) of ForFarmers touch upon the importance of circular feed ingredients within sustainability. To avoid such waste, ForFarmers is conducting research into the use of residual flows also known as co-products in animal feed. Jan and Evelien see plenty of opportunities: "As omnivores, pigs are perfectly capable of upgrading residual flows into high-quality protein."
What do we mean with circular feed ingredients?
"Circular feed ingredients can be divided into two groups," Jan explains. "First, you have food (ingredients) that are unfit for human consumption. Think of bread that is past its sell-by date. For animal feed these products can still be very valuable. Secondly, there are the co products, the residual flows from the production of other main products, for example in the production of beer, brewer's grains are waste but are very suitable as feed ingredients."
Cycle full of opportunities
Evelien: "Optimally we would convert these co products into high-quality protein products. Pigs are able to do that with almost any co-product, making them a perfect match in the in the fight against food waste." According to Jan, this important role of the pig is widely acknowledged in the agri sector and could help showcase to society how livestock has an important sustainability advantage . To that end, multiple of research is being done on the opportunities of circular feed ingredients in pig feed, especially in cooperation with other players in the feed business.
Jan: "We are currently involved in a multi-year project ‘Feed-4-Foodure’ in the Netherlands together with the Feed Research Association (VDN) and Wageningen University. The central theme is 'how to include a high share of circular feed ingredients in animal feeds?' By testing feed with circular ingredients particularly in poultry and pigs, we are investigating the opportunities and challenges in order to continue to produce predictable results and healthy animals in the future with these feed materials."