Commercial Food Production; Source Reduction and Management

Source Reduction and Management Alternatives for the Food Processing Industry

Fact Sheet, Minnesota Technical Assistance Program, University of Minnesota

Are your waste disposal costs excessive? Are you looking for alternative ways to manage your food by-products? Because landfill and wastewater treatment costs are increasing and will only continue to do so in the future, your company will benefit by looking at alternatives for reducing and managing food processing by-products.

Source Reduction

The most effective method of reducing your disposal costs is to decrease the volume of waste material and by-products generated in the production process. If less waste is generated, then less material needs to be disposed of. Source reduction should be the most logical starting point for reducing disposal costs since your company is in business to produce a saleable product, not waste materials or by-products.

Examples of source reduction include:

Use brooms and scrapers to clean floors and equipment while they are dry before washing them down with water.
Use high-pressure spray washes during cleanup to conserve water.
Dedicate mixing lines to certain products to reduce change-over cleanups.
Minimize spills and leaks on the production line to prevent raw materials from becoming wastes.

Management Alternatives

If source reduction is not a viable solution, management alternatives exist, including:

Using the food by-product as an animal feed.
Composting or landspreading the food by-product.

1. Animal Feed

Feeding by-products to livestock offers several advantages over either composting or landspreading, including:

By-products may be fed to livestock in their original form (permit required* ).
By-products can be fed in both liquid and solid form to livestock.
By-products can be fed year round. Feeding is not limited by weather conditions.

Feeding food by-products directly to livestock allows for former wastes to be useful again. In addition, the quantity of liquid and solid waste is reduced when by-products are fed to livestock rather than being disposed of in landfills or wastewater treatment plants.

*Note: Before any food materials may be used as a livestock feed, the livestock producer is required to obtain a permit from the Minnesota Board of Animal Health. To request a permit application, contact the Board at 651/296-2942.

2. Composting and Landspreading

When it is impractical to feed by-products to livestock, both composting and landspreading the food waste are viable alternatives. Both methods degrade food by-products into a useful soil additive called "humus." Composting degrades by-products above ground in a concentrated area, while landspreading degrades by-products beneath the soil in a cultivated field.

Composting. With proper management, food by-products can be kept out of the landfill and instead be composted and added to the soil at appropriate rates. Composting has the following benefits:

Low transportation costs. The by-products can be composted on site, and the resulting humus can have a volume and weight reduction of up to 40 percent.
Low capital investment. Composting is a batch process that can be done by using either a mound or a windrow system. In both systems all the by-products are managed to accelerate biological breakdown.
Good for seasonal processors. For a company (such as a cannery) that only processes food for several months a year, composting may be a suitable alternative to animal feeding or landfilling. Livestock producers may be unwilling to switch to a livestock feed that is only available for a short period.
Long shelf-life. Humus can be stored without spoiling and applied to enrich the soil as needed.

Landspreading. If your company has sufficient land, it is possible to incorporate food by-products directly into the soil on site. A farmer can be paid to take the by-products to a suitable field. Again, with proper management, food is kept out of the landfill and is used to enhance the soil. Landspreading has the following benefits:

A separate compost facility is not necessary.
The finished product does not have to be stored.
The finished product does not have to be transported. It is left in the soil as a plant nutrient.

For More Information

MnTAP can help you get started with reducing and managing your food by-products by providing technical assistance, information and referrals. Two additional fact sheets are available from MnTAP, "Feeding Food By-Products to Livestock" and "Composting and Landspreading Food Processing By-Products." Call 612/627-4646 or 800/247-0015 to request a copy of these fact sheets, more information or technical assistance.

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