Abstract
While food losses (foods which were intended for human consumption, but which ultimately are not directly eaten by people) have been included in animal feed for millennia, the practice is all but banned in the European Union. Amid recent calls to promote a circular economy, we conducted a survey of pig farmers (n = 82) and other agricultural stakeholders (n = 81) at a UK agricultural trade fair on their attitudes toward the use of food losses in pig feed, and the potential relegalisation of swill (the use of cooked food losses as feed). While most respondents found the use of feeds containing animal by-products or with the potential for intra-species recycling (i.e. pigs eating pork products) to be less acceptable than feeds without, we found strong support (>75%) for the relegalisation of swill among both pig farmers and other stakeholders. We fit multi-hierarchical Bayesian models to understand people’s position on the relegalisation of swill, finding that respondents who were concerned about disease control and the perception of the pork industry supported relegalisation less, while people who were concerned with farm financial performance and efficiency or who thought that swill would benefit the environment and reduce trade-deficits, were more supportive. Our results provide a baseline estimate of support amongst the large-scale pig industry for the relegalisation of swill, and suggest that proponents for its relegalisation must address concerns about disease control and the consumer acceptance of swill-fed pork.
Highlights
Food losses, i.e. foods which were intended for human consumption, but which are not directly eaten by people [1], have long been used as an animal feed–they have, for example, been fed to pigs since the very domestication of wild pigs, around 10,000 years ago [2]
The legislation bans catering wastes and feeds where there is the potential for intra-species recycling– i.e. pigs eating pork products, or chickens eating poultry products
While the difference between the acceptability of legally permitted and non-legally permitted sources of feed was close to zero (Fig 1), a model including an interaction between job and legal status had similar Akaike weight to models not including this interaction (Table 2), so while it appears that agricultural stakeholders thought that legal feeds and the non-legal feeds were acceptable, we cannot rule out that pig farmers perceived feeds that are not legally permitted to be less acceptable than feeds that are currently permitted
Summary
I.e. foods which were intended for human consumption, but which are not directly eaten by people [1], have long been used as an animal feed–they have, for example, been fed to pigs since the very domestication of wild pigs, around 10,000 years ago [2]. All food losses containing animal by-products (materials of animal origin that people do not consume e.g. tendons, processed animal proteins) are banned, except for those containing honey, eggs, pig or poultry gelatine, milk products, rendered fats, and collagen, where there is no risk of contamination with other sources of animal by-products [4]. These legal food losses are known as former foodstuffs. The legislation bans catering wastes (i.e. food that has been through a home kitchen or restaurant, making up the 57% of food losses in the EU [5]) and feeds where there is the potential for intra-species recycling– i.e. pigs eating pork products, or chickens eating poultry products
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