ISSUE FOCUS 28 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE December 2023 EMBRACING CIRCULARITY Historically, animals were fed with food- and crop waste from farms. If we want to understand the future role of animals in a sustainable world, we could look at that past and learn from it in order to avoid competition for limited resources between human- and animal food as much as possible. At the moment, some circular raw materials are already widely used. According to FEFAC, side streams and byproducts are considered as such when they are obtained from a process where the main activity is to obtain consumer goods, such as beverages, food, biofuels or other industrial applications. Examples are distillers dried grains (DDGS) which are spent grains and yeast cells from bioethanol or alcoholic beverages production, hulls from legumes or nuts, potato peels, sugar beet pulp, and even processed former foodstuffs from chocolate bars or biscuits2. They are often not fit for human consumption, but nevertheless can be valuable for animals. In this sense, animals can serve as biological recycling bins by upcycling circular raw materials into valuable animal products (Figure 1). Europe and the US are frontrunners in this field, where circular raw materials already account for an average of 35-45% of total animal feed, depending on the country and on the species. Of course, much depends on how circular raw materials are defined and what sources are included in the calculation. In other continents, also more local raw materials such as rice bran, cassava byproducts, coconut meal or palm kernel expeller are used. Next to reducing the cost for local consumers, this also cuts some of the emissions from transportation. Evaluating the different possible raw material options with open-source life-cycle assessment (LCA) tools and the Global Feed LCA Institute (GFLI) database will become a more standard practice throughout the industry. However, much work remains to be done to unlock the full potential of circular ingredients, including scoping their nutritional value, their availability considering feed-fuel competition and creating necessary policies to allow certain streams back into the cycle3. SUPPORTING ANIMALS TO COPE WITH CIRCULARITY As pressure increases to formulate feeds with a lower environmental footprint and as climate change puts a risk on the availability of conventional raw materials, a shift to less ideal raw materials can be expected. Research indicates that working with increased circular- and less ideal local ingredients increases the presence of anti-nutritional factors (ANF), fibers, protein, lipids and phytate. In addition, some byproducts such as legume hulls or DDGS come with an increased mycotoxin risk. These factors increase the risk of inflammation and oxidative stress in the gut which have consequences on feed intake, digestive processes, the microbiome, and bioavailability of nutrients. Especially when looking for alternatives for soybean meal, considerable disturbances in metabolism and intestinal structure are expected4,5. Obviously, the sector must remain profitable. Therefore, the risks of diminished production results and health problems due to oxidative stress must be avoided. In vivo oxidation of cells in the body of humans and animals is put forward by more Figure 1. The role of animals in circular food production systems (based on Muscat, 2021)
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