A European group of companies - Saria Bio-Industries AG & Co. KG

EUROPE
Good for us, bad for pigs?
Throughout the EU, animal fats are used in animal nutrition. The entire EU? No!
A “small” nation of 82 million people at the very centre of the EU continues to
refuse to do so ...
For over six years now, Germany has
proven the exception by banning the
use of animal fats in feed. This has led
to the curious situation whereby Danish
pigs, for example, are fed animal
fat, slaughtered in Germany for the
German market, with their freshly
slaughtered bones – and those of German
pigs – then sold to the Netherlands
where a category 3 bone fat is
subsequently processed for sale as
feed through Germany to Denmark or
Poland.
Still with us? Don’t worry, we don’t
quite follow it either!
What is worse is that the German
processing industry is severely limited
compared to its European counterparts
when it comes to marketing
these food-grade by-products and
cannot achieve market-driven added
value for its products. German fattening
operations are also unable to
use a low-cost feed that is recognised
as safe and are at a disadvantage
compared to their international competitors.
This even applies to foodsafe
fats such as lard and suet, meaning
that what is safe to go on our
plates is not safe enough for the
trough!
were able to welcome scientists
from the BfR and the Free University
of Berlin to SARIA in Lünen
on 7 September 2007 and inform
them about the capabilities of our
industry. Visits were also made to
the KFU GmbH plant in Marl and
that of Kurt Fülling Tierprodukte
GmbH in Dissen.
Recently German ministers for
agriculture have argued for the
ban on feeding fats to be lifted,
with German associations for the
livestock and meat industry (DBV,
DRV, ISN, VDF, ZDS, etc.) articulating
this even more strongly.
They are also calling for meat
bonemeal to be approved for poultry
and pigs.
Even though the signs are that
Germany will initially lift the ban
only partially, with the feeding of
animal fat to ruminants remaining
prohibited, this is a very important
step towards repositioning animal
fat within the feed and farming
industries.
● Dr. Martin Alm
Dr. Martin Alm,
Research and Development
Based on a new risk assessment by
the Berlin-based German Federal
Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) in
early 2007, this situation now seems
to be slowly changing. As a result we
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