NUTRIENT MANAGEMENT
RECYCLING RESIDUALS INTO ANIMAL FEED
More firms are collecting and processing food residuals from manufacturers, supermarket chains, hotels, bakeries and other commercial generators.
Molly Farrell

A handful of companies in the United States are expanding the types of food residuals used for animal feed by collecting pre- and postconsumer food from restaurants, grocery stores, hotels and other generators. One New Jersey company — Enviro-Feed of NJ, Inc. — picks up from more than 130 sites in 14 counties, turning food residuals into feed at its Perth Amboy plant which has been operating since August, 1999. The owners have been in the solid waste business for three generations and still operate a large paper and cardboard recycling firm. The Enviro-Feed plant is permitted by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to handle 200 tons/day, and it’s currently processing at the rate of 50 tons/day.

Making animal feed from food residuals has become more challenging in recent years because of federal regulations to prevent spread of contagious diseases. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Swine Health Protection Act requires that food residuals containing meat or poultry be boiled at 212°F (or 100°C) for 30 minutes with agitation before being fed to swine. The USDA permits feeding cooked food residuals to hogs but many states prohibit it, says Dan McChessney, deputy director of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Office of Surveillance and Compliance. “As a general rule, the federal regulations represent the minimum level of regulation,” he says. “If a state wants to be more stringent, its regulations take precedence.”

An FDA regulation went into effect in August 1997 to prevent the spread of the brain disease, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, better known as mad cow disease. “Mad cow disease dramatically affected the feed industry because the industry had to change how it made cattle, dairy and sheep feed,” says McChessney. The FDA regulation prohibits mammalian protein from cattle, horses and hogs being fed to ruminants such as beef and dairy cattle and goats. For cattle feed, an exception is made if the meat has been cooked or previously processed, offered for sale for human consumption and further heat processed.

Michael L. Westendorf, an extension specialist with Rutgers University’s Department of Animal Sciences, says farmers have been buying animal feed containing grain-based by-products from food manufacturers such as bakeries and breweries for years. “In New Jersey, Anheuser-Busch produces a tremendous amount of spent grain which is fed directly to cows. The carbohydrates and sugar are removed in the alcohol-making process, and the remainder is high in fiber and protein.”

ADVANCING METHODS TO THE NEXT LEVEL

Licensed hog farmers have traditionally been recyclers of food residuals for animal feed in New Jersey and elsewhere. The service provided by Enviro-Feed is advancing the business to the next level. Six top-loading, noncompaction trucks are used to collect fresh food residuals from generators located as far away as 80 miles from its plant. The firm sets up the accounts with customers, trains their staff to source separate food residuals from nonedible items and provides monthly documentation.

Enviro-Feed charges lower rates for collection and processing than conventional disposal in the region. “Our fees are indexed from $20 to $100 less than the customer’s existing solid waste removal costs. We work in partnership with our customers sharing in the prevailing market conditions,” says John Metzger, marketing manager. The company hopes to expand collections into the metropolitan New York area in the future. Generators are provided with 32-gallon lidded carts. “There are advantages to grocery stores using the carts,” adds Metzger. “Their employees can wheel a cart to the produce aisle and cull any unacceptable fruits or vegetables right into the cart. They don’t have to carry heavy bags of produce and lift them into dumpsters or compactors. The carts also eliminate odor problems. Many supermarkets are elegantly designed, and the owners don’t want odors from compactors wafting back into the stores. Food packed into compactors becomes anaerobic producing very noticeable odors, and sometimes liquids leak out onto the pavement.”

Enviro-Feed crews empty the contents of each full cart into the hopper of a collection truck. The cart tip-over height into the hopper is 30 inches making the handling and inspection of materials easy. The hopper is hydraulically lifted over the tailgate door, and the contents are dumped into the truck body. Collection crews are able to monitor the quality of source separation at each step during this process. If any nonfood items are found in the carts, the customer can be notified immediately and corrections made.

Emptied carts are counted and the generator is given a ticket recording the number collected that day. Instead of weighing each cart individually everyday, the company estimates their net weight based upon sample weighings and the type of business producing the food residuals. “Net weights are typically between 100 and 200 lbs/cart,” notes Metzger. “We check our figures periodically by weighing randomly in the field. Our customers also make their own tests from time to time, since they want the best value possible from the service. They can easily verify the amounts of food waste diverted each month by comparing solid waste compactor weights from before and after initiation of food residuals recycling.”

Food residuals are collected three to six days a week, depending on whether it is a large account, storage space is critical, or the residuals are especially perishable. The collection infrastructure is designed to bring feedstock to the plant in fresh condition so that the nutrients are preserved for the final product.

Six employees operate Enviro-Feed’s 20,000-square-foot plant. The bulk food residuals are first run through a picking line to remove contaminants. The residuals are ground, and then blended in large tanks. The blended materials are pumped into a processing line and mixed with dry products to reduce the moisture content of the food residuals and make them easier to dry. This mixture is extruded in noodle form and brought by a conveyor belt to dryers where it is sanitized and dried. Drying also breaks the noodles into one-inch long pellets which are stored in outside towers. Deliveries to customers are made in large bulk grain trucks. Occasionally, farmers come to the plant to get smaller loads of feed.
“Our goal is to develop a successful food waste-to-feed recycling system that can be duplicated in other urban areas,” sums up Metzger. “The feedstock can be adjusted to produce a variety of feed components with different nutritional values. The finished product has been tested by several livestock producers who continue to purchase it and use it as a regular part of their feeding program.”

DIVERSION EXPERIENCE AT NEWARK AIRPORT HOTEL

The Hilton Hotel at Newark Airport in Elizabeth, New Jersey was the first hotel in the Newark area to sign up with Enviro-Feed. “I was approached by the firm, and we started the program in early December,” says Marco Foelske, the hotel’s food and beverage director. Foelske had previously worked at the Hilton Walt Disney in Orlando, Florida where food residuals also had been collected for animal feed. “For the first few months, we paid extra,” recalls Foelske. The hotel paid $50 a ton and averaged 13.5 tons/month. “We had a contract with Waste Management to pull our large dumpster at $950 a pull. It was pulled two to three times a month, depending on how many catering and banquet events we had. After a few months, we changed the contract with Waste Management so that we paid per ton because we no longer had heavy food waste in the dumpster. Now we’re saving an average of $250 to $300/month.”

The hotel serves meals 24 hours a day. It places 22 carts in the kitchen, food and beverage area, and employee cafeteria to capture food residuals. “We’ve had some challenges in the employee cafeteria, because some employees weren’t used to separating food residuals but we’ve never had any problems in the dishwashing and kitchen areas,” notes Foelske. “It’s not more labor-intensive. We always had two bins in the kitchen anyway. The carts are on wheels so they’re easy to handle, and they’re not too big too pull or push.” The carts are wheeled outside onto the loading dock and are picked up three times a week. Metzger points out that one unexpected source separation issue was the amount of utensils that found their way into the food residuals carts at some hotels.

SERVING MIDWESTERN GENERATORS AND LIVESTOCK FARMS

As a result of its collection and recycling services in the Midwest, Endres Processing, LLC converts about 300,000 tons of food residuals into animal feed annually at its plants in Rosemount, Minnesota and Anamosa, Iowa. The company began in 1986 when the Endres Family Farm began feeding bakery waste to its cattle. “We now pick up residuals from food processors, bakeries, cereal plants, candy factories and other generators — winding up with particles that are less than one-tenth of an inch,” explains company president Leon Endres. Processing operations at its Minnesota and Iowa sites include dehydration, grinding, separation and producing a material with the consistency of meal which is sold as a high quality feed ingredient for all livestock rations.

Last year, Endres Processing purchased the assets of Stickle Salvage Feed and has been running its Anamosa, Iowa plant as Food Waste Solutions LLC. Products are marketed under the name, “Ultimate Nutrients,” mostly to feed mills and integrated livestock operations throughout the Midwest. “The animal feed market is tough right now,” comments Endres, “since the price of feed corn is so low and that means low prices for the product we sell into agriculture. It’s tough on all firms in our industry.”

The company’s product line includes: Endres Dairy Dessert, Minneapolis Meal Plus, Milkmaker Mash, Swiss Valley Malting Grains, Potato by-products, and kiln-dried sawdust for bedding. Its Dairy Dessert is described as a high energy corn replacement with the “taste of cookies”. A recent feed product in the Ultimate Nutrients line is described as a highly nutritious mix of ingredients from the food industry that contains “recyclable products from the baking industry such as cookies, candies, crackers, noodles, starches, pastas and cereals. It contains no mammalian proteins.”

Endres managers work with state environmental and regulatory agency personnel who recognize the contribution of their processing services to meeting recycling goals. “We collect food residuals from over 300 companies,” continues Endres. “We have the ability to pick up raw ingredients, floor sweepings, production waste and finished products that are still in packaging materials. Our process mechanically separates the foreign materials, including labels, from the food residuals that are processed into feed.” The company has recently been approved to process restaurant residuals into a registered feed ingredient. “We are currently picking product and the process is working great,” reports Endres.

According to a report in a feed industry trade journal, despite the variety in its incoming feedstock mix — that includes everything from overcooked corn flakes to onion bagels and Easter candy — nutritional properties of the meal vary only in a narrow range. Just like there are recipes for making quality compost, so too are their recipes for feed ingredient mixes. High-fat residuals are in one pile, pasta and bread in others, etc. Only prescribed amounts go into the mixer per batch. As with all forms of organics recycling, careful management leads to successful operations.

Articles in a future issue of BioCycle will update previously-published information on systems being used to recycle food residuals into animal feed. They include Thermo Tech Technologies, Koch Feed Technologies, EnviroCare, Camden Agro Systems and Organic Recycling Systems.