NARA Blog
What Would a World Without Animal Rendering Be Like?
If you are new to the topic of animal rendering, you may not realize how crucial it is for environmental sustainability worldwide – in addition to saving landfill space and accounting for $10 billion in annual economic activity across the country, including rural America. As a process to reclaim and reuse animal agriculture resources responsibly, reduce food waste, and find important uses for meat by-products, rendering is recycling at its most basic. In fact,
Highlights From The 2026 International Rendering Symposium
The 2026 International Rendering Symposium was held on January 29th in conjunction with the International Production & Processing Expo in Atlanta and sponsored by the North American Renderers Association (NARA) and the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association. It brought together global leaders from rendering, animal agriculture, sustainability, and communications to tackle a few main challenges in the rendering industry: how to clearly and passionately explain the value of rendering to a world increasingly disconnected from
How Does Rendering Create a Sustainable Environment?
These days, you can’t open a newspaper or turn on the TV without seeing a story about the environment and sustainability – and the practice of rendering can provide solutions to benefit both. What is rendering? Rendering is a process to reclaim and reuse animal agriculture resources responsibly, reduce food waste, and find important uses for meat by-products. It takes leftover materials from animal processing, such as fat, bones, and other materials, and reuses
Why Truck and Rail Transportation Are Essential to the Rendering Industry
Every year, the rendering industry plays a critical role in sustainability by giving new life to materials that would otherwise go to waste. Massive volumes of animal by-products are transported to rendering facilities, where they are converted into valuable fats and proteins. These materials are then recycled into everyday products, including pet food and other essential goods. Additionally, renderers also collect billions of pounds of used cooking oil (UCO) from restaurants and food manufacturers.
EPA Restores Rendering to the Wasted Food Scale — Highlighting a Proven Way to Prevent Food Waste
When most people think about food waste, they picture leftovers being thrown away. But preventing food waste isn’t just about reducing what ends up in the trash — it’s also about finding responsible, sustainable ways to use food scraps and materials that can’t be eaten. That’s where the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Wasted Food Scale comes in. The scale (formerly called the Food Recovery Hierarchy) ranks food management strategies from most to least environmentally
Tina Caparella Honored with NARA’s 2025 Don Franco Award
NARA has named Tina Caparella the recipient of the 2025 Don Franco Distinguished Service Award, the organization’s highest honor recognizing outstanding leadership and long-term contributions to the rendering and meat industries. Read the press release here. Tina’s career in the industry spans decades, beginning with her family’s legacy at Render magazine. The magazine was founded in 1972 by her grandfather, Frank Burnham, as a newsletter for West Coast rendering organizations, eventually becoming a national publication
National Farmer’s Day
Every October 12, National Farmer’s Day gives us a chance to pause and thank the people whose work sustains us every single day. From the ranchers who raise livestock to the processors who turn byproducts into valuable materials, agriculture’s backbone is built by those who see opportunity where others might see waste. And nowhere is that spirit clearer than in the rendering industry. Rendering is agriculture’s quiet sustainability hero. It’s the process of transforming the
From Community to Conservation: The Economic Impact of the Rendering Industry
Did you know that the rendering industry currently accounts for roughly $10 billion in annual economic activity across the United States? While we know that rendering helps to promote food waste sustainability, reclaim clean water, and reduce our carbon footprint worldwide, rendering also supports the North American economy in more ways than one. Rendering Creates Jobs The rendering industry proudly creates thousands of jobs throughout urban and rural North America each year. From
Celebrating the Next Generation of Agriculture Leaders: Meet the First NARA Rendering Scholarship Recipient
The North American Renderers Association (NARA) is thrilled to introduce the recipient of its very first Rendering Scholarship: Madelynn Pimm, a senior at Penn State University. Madelynn is majoring in Agribusiness Management and International Agriculture, and she’s already making her mark as a leader in the agricultural community. Her goal? To build stronger connections between producers and consumers while supporting the growth of agriculture for the future. Madelynn’s leadership goes beyond the classroom. She serves
Celebrating NARA Members for National Nonprofit Day
Today is National Nonprofit Day — a holiday created to recognize the vital role that nonprofits, like NARA, play within our communities and society. At heart, nonprofits exist to serve some greater social or public benefit, whether by organizing or funding research, providing important resources, education, or services, spearheading advocacy and awareness, or offering some combination of each. At NARA, our mission centers around representing and defending the best interests of our members and
