Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Recycling Food Waste: The How and Why

Imagine cows and pigs eating semi trailers full of bread, muffins, and rolls! Believe it or not, this happens around the country on a daily basis as America’s livestock often feed on bakery leftovers. This recycling of bakery by-products is a story that largely goes untold. It is, however, an extremely important way to make use of the large amount of unused dough, cakes, rolls, and grains produced by America’s industrial bakeries. When bakeries have excess food product or products expire, these must be thrown out like many other items. However, removed bakery by-products can be processed and turned into high quality animal feed known as Dried Bakery Product. This product is then used as a supplement to traditional livestock feed. There is generally a high demand for this product and some bakeries produce four semi-trailer loads of bakery by-product per day.


Of course this process begins with bakeries using food waste processing machines that can meet the demands of continuous loading and heavy production. SP Industries offers several different options for handling wet or dry food waste. Systems are not only made to adhere to the safety requirements produced by OSHA, but can also be made of stainless steel to meet USDA requirements. Our food waste compactors also have short cycle times and large chamber sizes to maximize waste handling efficiency. You can see an entire food waste handling system in action in this video. For food waste that is very dense, auger style containers work best for distributing waste that cannot be usefully compacted.

For more information on the process of recycling bakery products visit: http://www.scopeproducts.com/index.php and for more information on the equipment that makes this possible visit: http://www.bestcompactors.com/Food_Waste.htm Also, we would like to hear about any creative ways that you recycle food waste at home, from feeding your animals leftovers to using coffee grounds as potting soil by replying to this blog, or contacting us on Facebook or Twitter.