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By Karen Mancl, professor emeritus, Ohio State University
Already, one-third of the food produced worldwide goes to waste. The United States and China are the biggest contributors, wasting 40% and 27% of their food production, respectively. In China alone, 348 million tons of food are lost or wasted each year. In the United States, 14.7 million tons of food suitable for animal feed end up in landfills annually.
Japan moved early on this issue, adopting policies in 2009 to safely recycle food waste into animal feed; China has since followed suit. Both countries aim to become more self-sufficient, cut back on grain imports, and reduce the pollution caused by discarded food. With proper treatment, food waste can be transformed into safe, nutritious feed — a win for food security, landfill reduction, and the climate.
Japan is converting food waste to Ecofeed
Japan depends heavily on imports, bringing in two-thirds of its food and three-quarters of its animal feed. To reduce that reliance, the country set a national goal to cut imported feed use by 2030. Progress has been strong: Japan now repurposes 80% of manufacturing food waste and 57% of wholesale food waste into animal feed.
Ecofeed, a trademarked product in Japan, is produced under a certification system established by the Scientific Feed Association in 2009 to ensure safety and quality. The government continues to invest in research and development to improve production methods. By 2020, Ecofeed accounted for 300,000 tons — about 12% of Japan’s domestic animal feed consumption.
Upscaling food to animal feed
Gerald Shurson, Ph.D., University of Minnesota animal scientist, sees great potential in upscaling food waste to animal feed. In a recent interview, he told me about his research on balancing the benefits of reducing pollution from edible food waste with protecting animals from the spread of food-borne disease. In a life-cycle analysis, his research group found that thermally treated supermarket food waste had 60 percent lower greenhouse gas emissions than soybeans used as animal feed. They went on to include thermally processed food waste in the feed for pigs and found that food waste in the diet reduced carbon emissions by 6%, land use by 13%, and water consumption by 7% compared with pigs fed a purely grain-based diet.
One area that shows promise is growing insects from food waste, then processing the insect meal into animal feed. Insects are a natural protein source for birds, fish, and other animals. I visited the lab of Dr. Yanting Guo, the endowed chair of sustainability studies at Hood College. She is growing black soldier fly larvae by feeding them food service scraps. Food service and household food waste are the most difficult to recycle because they contain a mixture of foods contaminated with paper and plastic. Since this food waste is almost impossible to separate, the insects do it themselves. I watched the larvae eat up all the food scraped from plates, and when all that remained was inedible paper and plastic, they crawled out of the pile for easy collection for chicken feed. A French startup, Innovafeed, now operates the largest insect farm in the world in Nesle, France, converting food waste to protein powder.
Rethinking animal feed policies in China
China has a long history of recycling food waste as animal feed. The collection and feeding of food waste to animals was encouraged and promoted. When a group of U.S. animal scientists first traveled to China in 1979, they observed that animals were fed whatever food was available, including farm and food waste. With no planned animal feeding or nutrition programs, this opened the door for U.S. agriculture’s largest export market to buy soybeans, corn, and other grains for animal feed.
Everything changed in 2018, when African Swine Fever devastated China’s food supply, killing 250 million pigs. After the virus was detected in food waste contaminated with pork, China banned feeding food waste to animals. This action made China even more dependent on imported soybeans and other grains as animal feed, mostly from the United States and Brazil. Now, with an uncertain trade environment, the Chinese have adopted a plan to reduce soybean meal in animal rations. One way was to step back and take a fresh look at food waste as animal feed. In 2025, China is launching 20 pilot programs to collect and treat food waste for animal feed in cities across the country.
Finding win-win-win solutions
In 2018, with the outbreak of African Swine Fever, Chinese farmers were forced to abandon their long-held practice of feeding food waste to animals. Now, with policies like the “no-treat-no-feed” policy, China is carefully bringing back the upscaling of food waste to animal feed in a safe and environmentally friendly way. As trade tensions persist between the United States and China, Chinese agricultural researchers will continue to work to increase their domestic sources of animal feed.
Dr. Mancl is Professor Emerita of Food, Agricultural & Biological Engineering at The Ohio State University. To learn more about Chinese and U.S. agriculture and environment, go to the website for the Soil Environment Technology Learning Lab at SETLL.osu.edu.
