Modular Recovery and Processing Food Waste For Optimal Nutritional Value

There are limitation in converting food waste into animal feed. These limitations include:1) Concentration and variability of nutrients2) Control of pathogens3) Logistics of collecting and processingThese limitations can be well addressed and solved with good sourcing, innovative processing technology, and well designed waste management programs.In addition there are challenges to overcome:1) Food wastes are mostly wet which increases the cost of transportation from the sources of food waste found primarily in cities to the places of utilization found primarily in rural areas2) Pathogen transmission is another challenge when feeding human food waste to livestock. The Swine Health Protection Act (7 U.S.C. 3801 et seq.,) states that for the health and welfare of the people of the United States, all material containing raw or uncooked meat can be feed to pigs only if it has been treated to kill disease organisms.3) Of the methods to treat and kill potentially harmful pathogens, thermal
treatments are the most common however, an additional challenge is to avoid excessive thermal treatment that can decrease the nutritional value of the processed waste.This proposed program is designed to demonstrate the feasibility of:1) Using an innovative approach to collecting food waste from food waste generators and using thermal processing to eliminate harmful pathogens while maintaining the nutritional content/value2) Determining the effect the output has on swine digestibility and swine productionIn our proposed process, we will use a patent pending prototype mobile modular food waste processor (MMFWP) that serves as a mobile collection vehicle, food waste processor and dehydrator. Once the food waste is collected in the vessel/container, it is delivered to a central location, unloaded from the vehicle and with the food waste still contained within, hooked up to a heat transfer unit. It is then thermally treated to kill the pathogens without degrading the nutritional value of
the processed food waste. It is designed to dehydrate the food waste to less than 12% moisture. This allows not only for a shelf life of the output but will also inhibit the re-growth of pathogens. It overcomes the challenge of transporting wet food waste from cities to rural areas by dehydration of the food waste - reducing both weight and volume.The MMFWP prototype has been successfully operated. The results preliminarily support the premise that converting food waste to animal feed (swine) canmeet desirable nutritional content. Further research is needed to ascertain swine digestibility of the output.Now that the milestone of economically collecting and thermally processing the food waste to eliminate pahtogens, maintain nutritional content and dehydrating the output has been shown, the goal of this Phase 1 research is to:1) Determine and measure the digestibility of the nutrients byswine of the processed food waste through well established testing methodsThis is critical:1) To
validate to hog producers that converting food waste to animal feed with the technology applied by the MMFWP has equivalent or superior nutritional benefits compared to soybean meal and corn2) To validate that the nutritional benefit of the animal feed derived from the thermal process of the MMFWP is indeed digestible by swine3) To provide hog prodducers a measurement of targeted nutrients absorbed by hogs. This will allow producers feeding organic waste to determine the nutrient concentration and adjust accordingly4) To establish the bench mark price(s) for the output. Pricing the output is critical to building a viable commercial operationThe objectives we seek in this research:1) Measure the targeted nutritional components a. Amino acids b. Phosphorus c. Gross energy d. Digestible energy2) Compare 4 isolated diets fed to 36 pigs with 9 pig groups each receiving a specified diet.3) The 4 isolated diets are comprised of: a. Controlled diet of corn and soybean meal b. Processed
fish waste c. Processed fruit and vegetable waste d. Processed mixed waste4) Measure the nutritional content at three stages compared to the controlled diet of cornand soybean meal a. Nutritional content of the processed food waste prior to feeding the pigs b. Ileal digesta analysis c. Nutritional content found in the excretaThe objedtive again is to compare the 3 types of processed food waste against the controlled diet of a typical feed of corn and soybean meal and measure the digestiblity/absorbtion of the nutrients.