The best way to prevent food loss and waste is to utilize everything
Animal fats and proteins
Around 50 percent of an animal raised for meat production cannot be consumed directly. Among those co- or by-products are fats, bones, blood, leftover meat, feathers and some internal organs.
GEA offers key expertise and technologies to process these resources into valuable food or non-food products like oils and fats, protein hydrolyzates, collagen, gelatine and other ingredients for food, petfood, feed or biofuels.
Animal by-products processing
The other 50 percent: processing animal by-products
Processing the co-products or by-products from livestock breeding is not only economically reasonable, but also highly sustainable and can be seen as true recycling. Without rendering roughly 50 percent of every meat animal would be wasted, valuable resources lost with an enormous strain on our waste management systems as well as the environment.
In Europe alone roughly 18 million tons of animal by-products are collected from the meat and livestock industry each year and processed into valuable resources for food, feed and biofuels (source: EFPRA). In North America the rendering industry divert 62 billion pounds of food waste from landfill recycling these raw materials into 29 billion pounds of fat, oil and protein (source: NARA).
GEA has the right technology and expertise to help processing animal by-products into valuable food, petfood or feed ingredients or into feedstock for biofuels like HVO or SAF.
Thus, the food processors and renderers play an important part in our economies and societies: they take care of the proper management of by-products but also fallen animals to prevent health and food risks and they save millions of tons of valuable resources every year from becoming food waste.
Processed animal by-products - what are they used for?
In principle, proteins and fats can be extracted and purified by further processing from animal by-products, which are then used as ingredients or feedstock for
- Food
- Pet food
- Livestock, poultry feed
- Aquafeed
- Fertilizers
- Oleic acid, glycerin, stearic acid, linolic acid
- Biofuels, i.e. HVO (hydrated vegetable oil) or SAF (sustainable aviation fuel)
Whether on the plate or in the tank, rendering options are diverse.
GEA technology and expertise to process animal by-products
GEA supports the food processing and rendering industry with
- Centrifugal separation technology
- Membrane filtration
- Evaporators
- Sterilization units
- Heat treatment and pasteurization
- Spray dryers
- Spray congealers
- CIP systems
GEA technologies and process expertise are used for the production and processing of
- Rendered fats – edible and non-edible
- Collagen
- Bone and meat meals
- Protein hydrolysates
- Gelatine
- Blood plasma and blood meal
Products & technologies
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Centrifugal Separator
GEA separators are designed for liquid-based applications. Using centrifugal force, they are used for separating suspensions consisting of two or more phases of different densities, i.e. they can be used for liquid-liquid separation, for liquid-liquid-solid separation or for liquid-solid separation. They are equally as effective at separating liq...
Decanter Centrifuge
The decanter’s hour has come as soon as the solids content in the suspension to be processed is particularly high. These machines provide the benefits of high clarifying efficiency and maximum dewatering as well as the separation of liquids with the simultaneous removal of solids. The main requirements in this respect include a high bowl speed, a...
Tubular Heat Exchangers
Tubular heat exchangers are at the heart of all process plants for heating, cooling, pasteurizing or UHT heating.
GEA Insights
How SmartParc is rewriting the rules of food production
Thanks to a new SmartParc manufacturing site, food processors in the U.K. are cutting their running costs and emissions. With GEA heating and cooling technology at its core, this collaborative production model demonstrates how innovation is accelerating the industry’s net-zero ambitions.
The food science playground
“Brewing eggs is like brewing beer.” It’s the kind of comparison that makes you smile – and then it clicks: Something complex suddenly feels simple. Through this personal film, set in the agricultural heartland of the U.S., we explore precision fermentation and the real-world work it takes to turn an idea into food.
