Food loss and potential use of animal by-products in the livestock sector

Abstract

In 2014 and 2015, INRA has initiated a comprehensive approach to food loss and waste in the plant and the livestock sector, from primary production to processing. This paper summarizes the study for the livestock sector. Based on a mass-balance approach, the study has analyzed the destination of two types of discard from the food chain: firstly, foodstuff discarded from human consumption and, according to the definition of the study, potentially becoming food loss; secondly, inedible parts regrouped together as animal by-products (ABP). Food loss ranges between 3 and 8 % in the livestock sector, depending on species’ specificities (in particular their inclination to transmissible spongiform encephalopathies). Food loos are mainly related to the recycling of ABP in pet food, except for the beef sector, which incinerates an important share. As for inedible parts, animal feed and pet food play a different role according to the sector they stem from. A modest share (ranging between 1 and 5 % for terrestrial animals, 15 % for fish farming) is used for animal feed and, hence, indirectly for human consumption. It could be increased if uses for pet food (which range between 6 and 25 % according to the sector) were at least in part directed to animal feed.