The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has released new guidance on how food shops, manufacturers, and distributors should dispose of or handle ‘former foodstuffs or food waste’.

Issued in partnership with the Animal and Plant Health Agency, the guidance – for businesses that sell or distribute food – highlights that food waste and former foodstuff (foods no longer intended for human consumption) must be disposed of in a way that ‘doesn’t pose a risk to human or animal health’.

Guidance details

The guidance outlines that foods of animal origin and foods that contain products of animal origin and are intended for human consumption may be removed from sale when they:

• have passed their sell-by or use-by date;
• are visually imperfect, or have damaged packaging; and
• are spoiled, mouldy, or decomposing

If the food is removed from sale, but is still fit for human consumption, the food can be sent to supermarket returns depots or distribution centres to be redistributed for humans to eat.

Once a manager has made the decision that the foodstuff is no longer intended for human consumption, the food becomes an animal by-product (ABP) and must be dealt with in the appropriate way.

There are three types of this category of ABP (3 ABP): high risk; medium risk; and lower risk.

High risk

Only 20 kilogrammes of ‘high-risk’ items, such as raw animal products (i.e. meat, eggs or fish), can be sent to landfill per week by manufacturers, retailers and distributors.

Any material exceeding this limit must not be sent to landfill or used to make farm animal feed. Instead, it can be:

• incinerated or co-incinerated;
• processed to make organic fertilisers and soil improvers;
• used in composting or anaerobic digestion;
• ensiled (if coming from aquatic animals);
• used as fuel for combustion;
• used to make cosmetic products or medical devices; and
• sent to landfill after processing.

Foodstuffs in this category cannot be cooked to alter their status.

Medium risk

Foodstuffs such as cooked food, dried food, honey, and highly processed meat and fish products in cans, jars, pouches or shelf-stable aluminium packaging, can be sent to landfill for disposal or via any of the routes listed above.

This category cannot be used to create farm animal feed.

Bakeries treating this category can bake the foodstuff prior to disposal if the waste was: created during normal production process; originally cooked on the same premises; and heat treated in the same way as products intended for human consumption normally would be.

Lower risk

This category, including milk, egg products, animal fats, and bakery and confectionery products that don’t contain meat, fish or shellfish, can be disposed of by any of the routes listed above, or – where not decomposed or spoiled – can be used to make animal farm feed.

If being sent to make animal farm feed, the material must be kept separate from catering waste and any medium- or high-risk former foodstuffs.

Handling or disposing of catering waste

Any waste food (including used cooking oil) that comes from restaurants, cafés, catering sites, commercial or household kitchens is defined as catering waste.

If sent for processing, this waste is 3 ABP.

However, if the waste comes from international transport vehicles, the foodstuffs are classed as category 1 ABP and can only be disposed of by:

• incineration or co-incineration at an approved plant;
• pressure sterilisation, followed by permanent marking, then landfill;
• fuel for combustion at an approved combustion plant; or
• burial at an authorised landfill.

Catering waste must never be used for farm animal feed or pet food. The ban is to stop the spread of notifiable diseases in animals, like swine flu and foot and mouth disease, although campaigners claim that such former food stuff can often be rendered safe through heat treatment, as is done in Japan and South Korea.

Find out more about site hygiene, safety, and storage of food waste and foodstuffs.