by BRYAN WALKER

MENTION chicken and fish offal, and people turn up their noses, just thinking of the sight and smell.

But one business has found a way to turn it from waste to gain and make a small dent in the refuse going to the landfill.

C R Recycling, located next to Chickmont Foods Ltd in Balls, Christ Church, has been taking fish and chicken offal for
the last 12 years and turning out an additive that goes into animal feed.

Geoffrey Goddard, assistant general manager at Chickmont, said the plant was set up back in 1996 at a cost of more
than $3 million.

They take waste from the nearby Chickmont chicken slaughterhouse, other chicken processors, as well as fish offal from major processors and fish markets across the island.

Manager of Markets Henderson Greaves told the WEEKEND NATION that on a daily basis offal was collected from markets in Oistins, Christ Church; Paynes Bay and Weston, St James; Six Men's in St Peter; and the Bridgetown Fisheries
Complex. It is made available free of cost to the recycler.

"We have not dumped offal into the sea since 2000," Greaves said, adding that now less than ten per cent goes
to the landfill.

"Deliveries are made every day to the Balls plant," he said, with any offal from overnight being "treated" and taken to the landfill "very early in the morning".

"Since we can't set up [such a] plant, it is the ministry's view that the private sector should take the lead . . . and that's why we are in this arrangement with C R Recycling."

Goddard said that on average, the plant receives about 2 500 kilos per day of fish offal – heads, tails, fins, belly, and so on – and about 15 000 kilos from the chicken plant.

A pipeline runs from Chickmont's slaughterhouse right into the recycling plant, bringing the offal "every two to three minutes as the birds are slaughtered", he said.

There it is cooked at 140 degrees Celsius in two large pressure pots to sterilise the waste and break down any bacteria. It is a four-hour cooking process.

After this, there is further processing, including compacting, to remove any oils from the additive.

"So we get two ingredients – the meal and the fat – and that is sent to Roberts Manufacturing and incorporated into animal feed," said plant supervisor Denva Clarke.

Only "fresh" offal

Adrian Yard, senior farm service at Roberts, manufacturers of Pinnacle Feeds, said the meal was utilised in pet food and animal feed production.

"The rendered meal is high in protein and fat and is used to provide these nutrients in formulations. The fat is used as a substitute for imported tallow, while the rendered meal partially substitutes imported fishmeal," he added.

"The rendered material is processed to our specifications. This ingredient is thoroughly screened by our laboratory to ensure it conforms to our standards."

Goddard stressed that C R Recycling, which has provided employment for 12 people, only processed fish, chicken,
and "fresh" offal.

"We are very careful here. We don't do cross species. You can't bring in lamb, goats, pigs, and so on. With all the problems [some have] had with mad cow disease, even though our process is very sophisticated and should remove any of that, we are not taking any chances.

"If it is not fresh [the same day], they can't bring it here. High protein meat is a good food source for bacteria, and the problem is that bacteria produces something called a mycotoxin and there is nothing that can destroy it. So if it is too old, no sort of treatment will be able to destroy it. It has to be fresh, or we don't touch it."

He said production over the years had ebbed and flowed.

"It fluctuates – depending on demand for poultry and if there are good fish seasons. We have seen a slight increase recently [with] a few more suppliers since the Government was trying to divert [the waste] from the landfill to us."

And as for the smell, he said it was mainly the fish offal that would cause stench, but they quickly addressed it.

"Fish houses are not usually a challenge as they have it frozen the same day, but what we bring from the markets, when we offload it, we can get a bit of an odour. They may have been in the collecting bins for five or six hours."

He saw what they were doing not only as business, but also benefiting the island.

"Prior to this, the majority of it went into the landfill, only attracting rodents and creating a lot more odours. We are also providing Pinnacle Feeds with a raw material that they otherwise would have to import, so we are saving foreign exchange by taking something that would normally be thrown away and processing it."