Pet Food as the Most Concrete Strategy for Using Food Waste as Feedstuff within the European Context: A Feasibility Study

TLDR

Food waste harms the environment, and while reducing it can improve sustainability, EU regulations currently limit its use as animal feed. The study assesses the feasibility of innovative feed‑production measures in the EU and identifies optimal implementation strategies. A technical evaluation of a U.S. urban food‑waste‑to‑animal‑feed process and its potential application within the EU legal framework were examined.

Abstract

Food loss and waste have a negative environmental impact due to the water, land, energy and other natural resources used to produce the wasted food, along with post-consumption disposal costs. Reducing food waste will thus help improve sustainability and decrease the environmental impact of the food system. Using food waste for animal feed is of growing importance in terms of the policies targeted at tackling food waste but the current legal framework in the European Union (EU) strongly restricts the possibility of using food waste for this purpose. The aim of this work is to evaluate the feasibility of innovative measures for feed production in the EU and to identify the best strategies to implement them. First, a technical evaluation of a case study is presented, which is a process developed in the United States for urban food waste transformation into animal feed. Second, there is an analysis of the potential application of this process in the European Union within the current legal framework. The results reveal that the feed product derived from food waste is compliant with EU safety requirements and is nutritionally valuable. This work also suggests that the implementation of this kind of process in the European Union has great potential, provided that food surplus is recovered and treated before it turns into waste and that the different types of food surplus identified are used as feed for the right animal type in accordance with European legislation (i.e., livestock, aquarium fish, pets). On these terms, pet food can be the most concrete strategy for using food waste within the European context. In general, the implementation of feed-from-food measures to reduce food waste in Europe is already possible and does not need to wait for further policy interventions.