Food manufacturers send a lot of their waste to be turned into animal feed – including expired marshmallows, broken crackers and orange peels. Bloomberg reports the Food and Drug Administration’s proposed animal feed rule under the Food Safety Modernization Act could make it too expensive for these businesses to recycle un-used food in this way. The Grocery Manufacturers Association says the proposed rule would be costly, bad for the environment and provide little or no food safety benefit. In 2011 – nearly 44-billion pounds of food was kept out of landfills – with nearly 70-percent of the waste stream from manufacturers becoming animal feed and only five-percent being dumped into landfills. But if the proposed rule becomes law – GMA says as little as 22-percent of food waste would become feed and almost 28-percent would enter landfills to save manufacturers money. Overall – GMA says the new rule would cost manufacturers nearly 444-million dollars each year. Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri urges FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to revise the proposed animal feed rule to give more consideration to food byproducts used in animal feed. Blunt says we don’t just need to think about how to produce more food – but also how to effectively use the food and food products available.
Source: NAFB News Service