Nutritional Value and Benefits of Food Waste as Potential Feed Ingredients in Swine Diets

Abstract

The increasing generation of food waste over the past decades has become a prominent threat to both the society and the environment in terms of food security, wasting limited natural resources and pollution. The objective of this thesis was to quantify the nutritional, economic, and environmental value of food waste derived at multiple sources as swine feed in order to divert these wasted materials into a reusable form to salvage the resources. Chapter 2 explored the different sources of food waste from the generation streams and determined that food waste generated at the upper stream of the food supply chain have greater values than the ones generated at the lower part of the chain. We then evaluated the feeding value of different upper stream food waste- in-vivo such as Fish Waste, Supermarket Waste and Fruit and Vegetable Waste in Chapter 3. The results concluded that supermarket waste has the greatest potential to be utilized as animal feed owing to its high amino acid and energy content. Finally, in Chapter 4 we explored the possible environmental benefits of these food waste sources in which supermarket waste appeared to be most environmentally advantageous when used to replace traditional ingredients such as corn and soybean meal. Overall, it appears that food waste, especially those generated upstream, has great value to be used as animal feed considering both nutritionally and environmentally. To conclude, the information discussed in the thesis can help establish the basic knowledge of how food waste can be utilized in farm animals feeding programs and hence, providing confidence to reducing the overall volume of wasted food in the society and increasing the sustainability of our food system.