We're sorry. An error has occurred
Please cancel or retry.
Upcycling food loss and waste into animal feed
Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
-
16 July 2026

About 33 to 40% of the global food production is lost or wasted at all stages of the supply chain. This inefficiency of natural resource use is unsustainable for feeding a growing world population of people. Recycling nutrients in FLW into animal feed is an underutilized but essential approach for recovering and repurposing valuable nutrients while sparing natural resources needed to produce food. Plant-derived FLW comprises more than 85% of the total produced globally, have negligible microbiological feed safety risks, and high moisture sources can be easily ensiled or co-ensiled with other crop residues for long-term storage and preservation for feeding to ruminants. Feeding animal-derived FLW sources to designated animal species also has minimal feed safety risk if adequate thermal processing (>80° C for 30 minutes) is used. Sources of animal-derived FLW that may contain prions or African swine fever virus should be diverted to other non-feed recycling uses.
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Definition of food loss and waste
- 3 Criteria for evaluating the use of various types and sources of food loss and waste in animal feeds
- 4 Bioprocessing food loss and waste to enhance preservation and feeding value
- 5 Upcycling nutrients in food loss and waste to insect meal
- 6 Environmental benefits of upcycling food loss and waste into animal feed
- 7 Conclusion
- 8 Where to look for further information
- 9 References