Food waste as pig feed does not affect meat
Published: Monday, Feb 5th 2024, 13:10
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Feeding pigs with food waste has no influence on meat quality. This was shown by researchers from Agroscope in a study. They fed pigs with chocolate, pasta and breakfast cereals.
This is a promising solution for reducing food waste, announced Agroscope, the Swiss government's competence center for agricultural research, on Monday.
For the study, which was published in the journal "animal", researchers from the University of Milan and Agroscope replaced 30 percent of the grain in the feed of pigs of the "Swiss noble pig" breed with either salty foods such as pasta, bread and snacks or sweet foods such as chocolate, breakfast cereals and cookies.
All 36 pigs remained in good health throughout the entire trial period, as the researchers wrote in the study. Growth performance, i.e. the rate at which a pig gained weight, was also unaffected, as the study showed. The total fat content of the pork also remained the same. However, pigs fed with sweet feed had slightly more belly fat.
Better environmental balance
The food waste fed to the pigs belongs to the so-called "Former Food Products", as specified in the study. This includes processed food that is not suitable for human consumption due to logistical, manufacturing or packaging errors. In contrast to gastro waste, these "former food products" may be fed to pigs.
Common pig feed consists largely of soy and grain. Up to 70 percent of the grain harvested worldwide is fed to animals, as the authors wrote in the study. At the same time, around a third of the food intended for human consumption is wasted. According to the study, feeding some of this wasted food could reduce the environmental impact caused by food production.
©Keystone/SDA
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