ISSUE FOCUS 38 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE October 2025 The EU Farm to Fork Strategy aims to create fair and healthy food supply systems, ensuring a high level of health protection while promoting sustainability and innovation. It also included legally binding targets for food waste reduction targets to be achieved by 2030. This strategy is a key component in improving the sustainability of meat production. On one hand, sustainable practices help prevent health issues at the farm level, which would otherwise increase the waste of natural resources and reduce economic returns for primary producers. On the other hand, food waste at the retail level has financial, environmental and social consequences, eroding consumer trust. It has been estimated that one-fifth of food available to consumers is wasted at the retail, food service and household levels (UNEP, 2024). Therefore, extending the shelf life of meat is a promising strategy to mitigate these losses. The olive oil industry is of major importance in Spain, the world’s leader producer. Several by-products generated during olive oil production (e.g. leaves, pomace) contain bioactive compounds, such as polyphenols (hydroxytyrosol) and triterpenes (maslinic and oleanolic acid). These compounds, when used as feed additives, represent a clear example of circular economy practices aligned with the EU Farm to Fork Strategy. These bioactive compounds help maintain the intestinal environment free of inflammatory processes avoiding oxidative stress in order to maintain an optimal digestive integrity and function (Pastor, 2025), contributing to a reduction in the use of antibiotics. In fact, together with other strategies, this approach contributes to the reduction in the use of antibiotics, that has achieved in Spain a decrease of 53% in the last 4 years (Rubio, 2025). The strategy is widely applied in poultry production, particularly in intensive broiler systems, where animals reach the slaughter weight target at a younger age every year due to genetic selection, improved environmental conditions and optimal feed formulation. When the intestinal function is preserved, certain dietary antioxidants can be absorbed and deposited in muscle tissues, both in the lipid and aqueous fractions, modulating oxThe use of by-products is essential in a circular economy and contributes to the sustainability of food systems. Olive bioactive compounds can be incorporated into animal feed, promoting gut health. These compounds, obtained from olive by-products, may also influence some meat quality attributes important to consumer, although they have been scarcely studied. Olive By-Products in Poultry Feed: EFFECTS ON MEAT QUALITY Dr. María del Mar Campo Professor at Animal Production and Food Science Department University of Zaragoza — Spain
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