Animal Rendering: Economics and Policy

Order Code RS21771

Updated March 17, 2004

CRS Report for Congress

Received through the CRS Web

Animal Rendering: Economics and Policy

nae redacted

Specialist in Agricultural Policy

Resources, Science, and Industry Division

Summary

Renderers convert dead animals and animal byproducts into ingredients for a wide

range of industrial and consumer goods, such as animal feed, soaps, candles,

pharmaceuticals, and personal care products. U.S. regulatory actions to bolster

safeguards against bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease) could

portend significant changes in renderers’ business practices, the value of their products,

and, consequently, the balance sheets of animal producers and processors. Also, if

animal byproducts have fewer market outlets, questions arise about how to dispose of

them safely. This report, which will not be updated, describes the industry and discusses

several industry-related issues that have arisen in the 108th Congress.1

Introduction

Renderers convert dead animals and animal parts that otherwise would require

disposal into a variety of materials, including edible and inedible tallow and lard and

proteins such as meat and bone meal (MBM).2 These materials in turn are exported or

sold to domestic manufacturers of a wide range of industrial and consumer goods such

as livestock feed and pet food, soaps, pharmaceuticals, lubricants, plastics, personal care

products, and even crayons (also see Table 1 on page 6).

Although rendering provides an essential service to the increasingly intensive and

cost-competitive U.S. animal and meat industries (and is subject to certain government

food safety and environmental regulations), the industry has largely operated outside of

public view. However, rendering has attracted greater public attention since the discovery

1

For periodic updates on issues affecting the industry, see CRS Issue Brief IB10127, Mad Cow

Disease: Agricultural Issues for Congress.

2

Among other sources for this report are Sparks Companies Inc., The Rendering Industry:

Economic Impact of Future Feeding Regulations, June 2001, and Livestock Mortalities: Methods

of Disposal and Their Costs, March 2002, both prepared for the National Renderers Association

(NRA); Don A. Franco and Winfield Swanson, eds., The Originial Recyclers, 1996, published

by the Animal Protein Producers Industry, the Fats & Proteins Research Foundation, and NRA;

and February 2004 interviews with officials of NRA and the American Meat Institute (AMI).

Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress

CRS-2

of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease) in two North American

cows in 2003. U.S. officials have announced or are considering new regulatory actions

intended to reassure foreign and domestic customers that BSE will not threaten food

safety or U.S. cattle herds. These actions are likely to cause changes in renderers’

business practices, costs, and product values. Any changes in the economics of rendering

likely will affect the economics of animal and meat producers too.

Industry Overview

Renderers annually convert 47 billion pounds or more of raw animal materials into

approximately 18 billion pounds of products. Sources for these materials include meat

slaughtering and processing plants (the primary one); dead animals from farms, ranches,

feedlots, marketing barns, animal shelters, and other facilities; and fats, grease, and other

food waste from restaurants and stores.

In meat animal slaughtering and processing plants, the amount of usable material

from each animal depends largely upon the species. For example, at slaughter, a 1,200pound steer can yield anywhere from 55% to 60% of human edible product, including

meat for retail sale, edible fat, and variety meats (organs, tongue, tail, etc.), according to

various estimates. Subtracting another 5%-8% for the weight of the hide, which goes into

leather, leaves 32%-40% of material for rendering. If this range were applied consistently

to all 35.5 million U.S. cattle slaughtered in 2003, the equivalent would represent the

weight of approximately 11 million to 14 million live cattle.3

Elsewhere, independent renderers collect and process about half of all livestock and

poultry that die from diseases or accidents before reaching slaughter plants (Sparks 2002).

U.S. farm animal mortalities in 2000 included approximately 4.1 million cattle and calves

(totaling 1.9 billion pounds); 18 million hogs (1 billion pounds); 833,000 sheep, lambs,

and goats (64 million pounds); and 82 million chickens and turkeys (347 million pounds),

according to Sparks, which examined USDA data.

“Disposing of these mortalities is complicated because of the need to minimize

adverse environmental consequences, such as the spread of human and animal disease or

the pollution of ground or surface water,” Sparks (2002) observed. “For many producers,

paying a modest fee to have a renderer remove dead carcasses is likely preferred to

finding alternative on-farm disposal methods” (i.e., burial, incineration, or composting).

Number and Types of Rendering Plants. One study estimated that 137 firms

operated 240 plants in 1997, with a total payroll of nearly 10,000 employees.4 More

recently, the National Renderers Association (NRA) estimated that Canada and the United

States have a combined 250-260 rendering plants. Rendering facilities may be either

integrated or independent operations.

3

Yield estimates vary, however. For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) has

estimated that half of every cow and a third of every pig is not consumed by humans. WHO,

Understanding the BSE Threat, October 2002.

4

PL 107-9 Federal Inter-agency Working Group, Animal Disease Risk Assessment, Prevention,

and Control Act of 2001(PL 107-9), Final Report, January 2003, Appendix 6.

CRS-3

Integrated plants operate in conjunction with animal slaughter and meat processing

plants and handle 65%-70% of all rendered material. The estimated 95 U.S. and

Canadian facilities (NRA) render most edible animal byproducts (i.e., fatty animal tissue),

mainly into edible fats (tallow and lard) for human consumption. Edible rendering is

subject to the inspection and safety standards of USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection

Service (FSIS) or its state counterparts, which by law already are present in the meat

slaughter and processing plants. These plants also render inedible byproducts (including

slaughter floor waste) into fats and proteins for animal feeds and for other ingredients.

Because a meat plant typically processes only one animal species (such as cattle, hogs, or

poultry), its associated rendering operations likewise handle only the byproducts of that

species. The inedible and edible rendering processes are segregated.

Independent operations handle the other 30%-35% of rendered material. These

plants (estimated by NRA at 165 in the United States and Canada) usually collect material

from other sites using specially designed trucks. They pick up and process fat and bone

trimmings, inedible meat scraps, blood, feathers, and dead animals from meat and poultry

slaughterhouses and processors (usually smaller ones without their own rendering

operations), farms, ranches, feedlots, animal shelters, restaurants, butchers, and markets.

As a result, the majority of independents are likely to be handling “mixed species.”

Almost all of the resulting ingredients are destined for nonhuman consumption (e.g.,

animal feeds, industrial products). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

regulates animal feed ingredients, but its continuous presence in rendering plants, or in

feed mills that buy rendered ingredients, is not a legal requirement.

The Rendering Process. In most systems, raw materials are ground to a uniform

size and placed in continuous cookers or in batch cookers, which evaporate moisture and

free fat from protein and bone. A series of conveyers, presses, and a centrifuge continue

the process of separating fat from solids. The finished fat (e.g., tallow, lard, yellow

grease) goes into separate tanks, and the solid protein (e.g., MBM, bone meal, poultry

meal) is pressed into cake for processing into feed.5 Other rendering systems are used,

including those that recover protein solids from slaughterhouse blood or that process used

restaurant grease. This restaurant grease generally is recovered (often in 55-gallon drums)

for use as yellow grease in non-human food products like animal feeds.

Value and Use of Rendered Products. The 18 billion pounds of ingredients

that renderers produce each year have been valued at more than $3 billion, of which $870

million is exported. Of the 18 billion pound total, 10 billion pounds were feed ingredients

with a value of approximately $1 billion (Sparks 2001). MBM accounted for 6.6 billion

pounds of this, poultry byproducts 4 billion pounds, and blood meal 226 million pounds

(Sparks).6 Such ingredients are valued for their nutrients — high protein content,

digestible amino acids, and minerals — and their relatively low cost. Poultry operations

and pet food manufacturers accounted for 66% of the domestic MBM market of nearly

5.7 billion pounds in 2000, while hog and cattle operations took most of the rest.

5

6

A more detailed description and flowchart is on the NRA website, [http://www.renderers.org/].

Sparks 2001. However, MBM as a proportion of total animal feed consumed is relatively low,

at less than 1% each for ruminants and swine, about 2% for poultry, and 7% for pet food, Sparks

said. Seventy percent of all blood meal has gone for ruminants, mainly dairy. (Otherwise,

federal rules prohibit the feeding of most mammalian proteins back to ruminants.)

CRS-4

Policy Discussion

So long as animals are raised and processed for food, vast amounts of inedible

materials will be generated, the result of premature deaths, herd culls, and slaughter

byproducts. “Regardless of quantity, byproducts and rendered products from the slaughter

process must be sold at whatever price will clear the market or the industry (and the

environment) incurs a cost for disposal.”7 As government rules and industry practices

evolve to address food safety and animal disease concerns like BSE, options for using

these byproducts may become more limited. If animal byproducts have fewer market

outlets, new questions may arise about how to dispose of them safely and who should pay.

“Feed Ban” Impacts. Scientists currently maintain that infected animal feed is

the primary source of BSE transmission (although research continues into other potential

sources). Therefore, U.S. officials believe that regulation of feed ingredients is the single

most effective method for controlling BSE. Following the widespread outbreaks of BSE

in Great Britain and Europe, the FDA in August 1997 imposed a ban on feeding most

mammalian proteins to cattle and other ruminants. Prohibited proteins still can be fed to

other animals such as pigs, poultry and pets. (FDA in late January 2004 announced plans

to expand the list of prohibited proteins.)

Estimates vary on the economic impact of the feed ban. According to a 1997 report

prepared for the FDA on compliance costs and market impacts, the FDA feed ban could

reduce MBM values by between $63 million and $252 million, or $25 to $100 per ton.8

Sparks (June 2001) estimated that the average MBM value loss since the 1997 rule was

$18 per ton, for a total of $288 million during the period 1996 to 2000. Sparks added that

these losses likely were highly concentrated among renderers that produce MBM

exclusively, and among those handling mixed species. The FDA-commissioned report

predicted that renderers would pass much of the lost value to packers by paying less for

raw materials; packers in turn were expected to reduce their payments for cattle.

The 2001 Sparks study examined potential cost impacts of several options for more

extensive feed restrictions. It estimated that a total animal protein feed ban to ruminants

would cost $100 million yearly; a total ban on all ruminant proteins to all farm animals,

$636 million yearly; and a total animal protein ban to all farm animals, $1.5 billion yearly.

Downers and Dead Animals. Another recent regulatory action with an impact

on the rendering industry was USDA’s December 30, 2003, ban on all “downer”

(nonambulatory) cattle from the human food supply. U.S. officials consider downers, or

animals unable to rise or walk, to be one of the higher-risk cattle groups for BSE

(although industry officials note that most animals become nonambulatory from injuries

or non-BSE diseases). Before the ban, USDA estimated that 150,000-200,000 downers

were entering slaughter plants. One issue is whether the downer ban has removed an

economic incentive to market downers and thus made it more difficult for USDA to

obtain such animals for BSE (and other disease) surveillance.

7

PL 107-9 Federal Inter-agency Working Group, Animal Disease Risk Assessment, Prevention,

and Control Act of 2001 (PL 107-9), Final Report, January 2003.

8

Eastern Research Group, Cost Analysis of Regulatory Options to Reduce the Risk of an

Outbreak of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies in the United States, Addendum to the

Final Report, April 30, 1997.

CRS-5

On March 15, 2004, USDA announced a major expansion of its BSE surveillance

program that will sample many more downers and dead animals, adding that it is looking

to renderers (among other sites) to make these animals available. Numerous practical

problems — such as how to recover and store carcasses, who will sample, the costs, etc.

— now confront both government and industry officials.9

Disposal Questions. If renderers earn less money from rendered byproducts and

dead animals, they will pay less for such materials. In the past, renderers paid for dead

animals. Now most charge a fee to pick them up.10 In its 2002 study on the cost of

livestock mortalities, Sparks assumed that so long as MBM could be sold for feed, the

average per-head cost of disposing of dead cattle and calves might be $8.25 per head; if

MBM is banned from animal feed, the cost could rise to $24.11 per head. Sparks

estimated the per-head costs for other disposal methods at $9.33 for incineration, $10.63

for burial, and $30.34 for composting.

The 2002 World Health Organization (WHO) report observed that rendering,

because it “sanitizes” animal wastes, “performs an essential public service: the

environmental clean-up of wastes too hazardous for disposal in conventional ways. For

example, animal wastes provide ideal conditions for the growth of pathogens that infect

humans as well as animals. Incineration would cause major air pollution. Landfill could

lead to disease transmission.”11

A USDA advisory committee in February 2004 said that along with an enhanced

BSE surveillance program, “a comprehensive system must be implemented to facilitate

adequate pathways for dead and non-ambulatory cattle to allow for collection of samples,

and for proper, safe disposal of carcasses; this must be done to ensure protection of public

health, animal health, and the environment; such a system will require expending federal

resources to assist with costs for sampling, transport and safe disposal.”12

Others temper this view of rendering by observing that the nation’s clean air and

water laws are in place to address possible adverse environmental impacts. These

responsibilities are enforced under the purview of the U.S. Environmental Protection

Agency (EPA) and generally through states and localities, which often impose their own

environmental and health standards as well. While rendering (which also must abide by

such standards) certainly is one option for handling dead stock and animal byproducts, it

has been argued, this option does not relieve the animal and meat industries of their

environmental responsibilities. Because these industries created this material, they should

bear the costs, not the public, particularly at a time when budget deficits are forcing

difficult spending choices, the argument goes.

9

About 75-85 rendering plants currently accept nonambulatory livestock, Tom Cook, NRA

president, said in early 2004. About 85-90 plants could handle dead animals, he also has said.

Information on the BSE surveillance plan is available through USDA at: [http://www.usda.gov/].

10

Tom Cook, NRA President, personal communication, January 19, 2004.

11

Understanding the BSE Threat, p. 7. WHO also notes that BSE is “the notable exception” to

rendering’s ability to kill most infectious agents.

12

Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Foreign Animal and Poultry Diseases, Measures Relating

to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in the United States, February 13, 2004.

CRS-6

Table 1. U.S. Production, Consumption, and Export

of Rendered Products, 1999-2003(p)

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003(p)

(in thousand metric tons)

PRODUCTION

Inedible tallow & greases

3,209.5

3,242.9

3,116.2

2,927.1

2,826.4

Edible tallow

784.4

834.8

836.9

894.3

890.1

Lard

243.1

234.9

182.9

118.6

113.2

Meat meal & tankage

2,748.2

2,612.4

2,508.7

2,256.3

2,482.9

Feather meal

379.2

367.6

353.6

357.2

354.1

All other inedible a

1,148.2

1,235.4

1,257.7

1,911.6

1,386.7

Total Production

8,518.6

8,534.1

8,262.0

8,471.1

8,478.9

Soap

104.0

67.1

Inedible tallow for feed

435.5

Greases for feed

DOMESTIC CONSUMPTION

b

b

b

412.0

424.4

400.2

549.2

812.2

837.9

859.6

648.2

622.8

Lubricants

45.6

46.5

b

b

b

Fatty acids

262.1

265.0

262.0

b

b

Edible tallow (edible/inedible uses)

194.4

206.9

241.7

232.3

200.8

Lard (edible/ inedible uses)

176.2

156.0

136.0

136.2

122.7

Meat meal & tankage; feather meal

3,873.1

3,755.7

3,626.4

3,920.6

2,276.5

Total Domestic Consumption

5,934.5

5,779.6

5,664.3

5,707.6

4,068.7

Inedible tallow

875.8

789.4

605.4

792.3

713.1

Yellow grease

183.4

182.6

184.3

287.8

259.0

Other inedible fats & oils

247.6

229.7

190.3

206.7

223.9

Edible tallow

143.8

110.8

165.3

232.0

204.2

Lard

66.9

78.9

46.9

38.2

53.6

Meat & bone meal

381.5

434.9

451.6

565.5

520.3

Feather meal

21.0

24.9

42.0

39.0

40.2

Bone & bone products

26.4

35.1

36.9

23.8

25.6

Total Exports

1,946.5

1,886.2

1,722.7

Source: NRA; 2003 data preliminary (p).

a. Includes poultry fat and by-product meal and raw products for pet food.

b. Withheld to avoid disclosing individual firm data.

2,184.5

2,039.9

EXPORTS

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