Earlier this month, on September 14th, NARA’s Director of Communications, Anna Wilkinson joined other esteemed speakers from the agriculture, reduced food waste and sustainability industries for USDA’s 2nd Annual Virtual Food Loss and Waste Innovation Fair.
In her presentation titled “Rendering: The Unsung Hero of Sustainability,” she detailed why the often-overlooked rendering industry is actually a major player in the reduction of food waste. She discussed rendering’s important role in not only food waste reduction but also saved landfill space, GHG reduction, and water reclamation as well as rendering’s ability to help minimize the environmental impacts of animal agriculture (like climate change).
Rendering is, after all, the original recycling and by taking the nearly 50% of an animal that we don’t eat (and would otherwise be treated as food waste) and safely upcycling that material through the rendering process, our industry produces sustainable material to produce numerous new goods including (but not limited to): safe and nutritious pet food and animal feed, biofuels and renewable diesel and hundreds of everyday products like tires, paint, plastics, candles, and cement.
This exciting USDA event and all webinars are still available to view online, so if you are interested in learning how the rendering industry and others are helping to combat food loss, simply click HERE. Registration is free!
View the agenda here.
NARA would like to thank USDA for the opportunity to share rendering’s sustainability story at this important event.
