The use of animal by-products in a circular bioeconomy: Time for a TSE road map 3?

Abstract

In 2005 and 2010, the European Commission (EC) published two subsequent 'Road Maps' to provide options for relaxation of the bans on the application of animal proteins in feed. Since then, the food production system has changed considerably and demands for more sustainability and circularity are growing louder. Many relaxations envisioned in the second Road Map have by now been implemented, such as the use of processed animal proteins (PAPs) from poultry in pig feed and vice versa. However, some legislative changes, in particular concerning insects, had not been foreseen. In this article, we present a new vision on legislation for increased and improved use of animal by-products. Six current legislative principles are discussed for the bans on animal by-products as feed ingredients: feed bans; categorization of farmed animals; prohibition unless explicitly approved; approved processing techniques, the categorization of animal by-products, and monitoring methods. We provide a proposal for new guiding principles and future directions, and several concrete options for further relaxations. We argue that biological nature of farmed animals in terms of dietary preferences should be better recognised, that legal zero-tolerance limits should be expanded if safe, and that legislation should be revised and simplified.

Keywords: Animal proteins; BSE, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy; CJD, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease; EFSA, European Food Safety Authority; EU, European Union; EURL, European Reference Laboratory for Animal Proteins; Legislation; PAP, Processed Animal Protein; PCR, Polymerase Chain Reaction; QRA, Quantitative Risk Assessment; Sustainability; TSE; TSE, Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy; WOAH, World Organization for Animal Health.

Fig. 1

The feed bans for processed animal proteins with options for future relaxation. Index numbers refer to the text of item 1 in section 5. Red: ruminant ban; orange: extended feed ban, red dotted with orange or green: species-to-species ban; green: legalised. Orange text: extracted from EU Road map (EC, 2011). HP: hydrolysed proteins; R: ruminants. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)