Feed safety is GMP+ International’s backbone. It is the foundation of a reliable and trustworthy feed chain that protects animals and people. But safety is also one of the most important pillars of the feed sustainability transition.
To be clear; being safe is not the same as being sustainable. Being GMP+ FSA certified means you’re using a recognised feed safety management system, but it does not enable you to make green claims.
And still, there are fundamental connections between safety and sustainability. Safe practices reduce waste, unlock innovative and responsible feed solutions, and can address many influences that threaten to destabilise the feed sector.
Preventing waste
The most sustainable tonne of animal feed is the tonne that you do not have to discard and replace. Safety non-compliance leads to rejected loads, wasted feed, and wider losses across the supply chain. The dioxin crisis in Germany in 2010/11 contaminated hundreds of tonnes of feed, most of which was destroyed before reaching animals. But the ripple effect saw thousands of farms closed, thousands more chickens killed, and hundreds of thousands of eggs destroyed. The total waste in resources, emissions, and animal life was incalculable, and avoidable.
A feed safety culture is therefore about more than just business continuity for feed companies; it’s about using resources responsibly. Tools like GMP+ Feed Safety Assurance certification help to significantly reduce the chance of a batch being contaminated and rejected.
Circularity and valorisation
Safe practices also enable materials to be valorised and enter the feed chain.
Numerous feed ingredients come from circular or byproduct sources. Byproducts from vegetable oil production, like lecithin, are produced in huge quantities and are a valuable source of nutrients for animals. Similarly citrus pulp and potato peels, stale bread, molasses, and even brewer’s spent grains from GMP+ certified companies like Heineken, are reprocessed into the feed chain in a safe way. Since 2007, more than 80 circular products have been included in the GMP+ product list, and lately we’ve seen feed companies reprocessing these products further to optimise their nutritional value and digestibility.
Using these materials for feed can reduce waste, which has a measurable effect on a carbon footprint. Circular feed is not a complete solution to greenhouse gas emissions, and our sector still has much to do to reverse our environmental impact, but circularity can make our footprint substantially lighter. In one LCA study for instance, the increased use of circular feed helped cut the emissions from pigs by 46%.
If you are curious about using circular feed materials, or already are but want to know the impact it has on your own footprint, then our new Feed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) standard is there to help you calculate and communicate the environmental impact of you feed products in a consistent and comparable way.
Scaling up solutions
The race for sustainable feed is heating up, with a great deal of innovation and new ideas being tested and implemented across the sector; including insect protein, algae, fermentation, and many others. But if we are to make a meaningful contribution to the green transition, then more sustainable feed products must scale up and displace their unsustainable counterparts.
Scaling up any new or innovative product line is already difficult, but without sufficient safety credentials it is just impossible. No matter how responsible a feed product is, if it is unsafe the market will never trust it. Safety is the price of entry.
A strong reputation for safety is therefore not separate from sustainability, but is needed to make sustainability credible. Feed companies that can consistently demonstrate safe sourcing, reliable controls, and transparent assurance – and have the GMP+ certificate to prove it – are far better positioned to earn trust with innovative, circular, and sustainable products, and ultimately scale them across the market.
Unsafe is unsustainable
Feed safety and sustainability practices are often treated as separate conversations. In reality, they are both responses to a shared underlying threat; instability.
A feed system that is not sustainable will, over time, deplete resources, destabilise supply chains, and increase variability and pressure, all of which are known drivers of feed safety risk.
For example; underpaying farmers, especially smallholders, intensifies the economic strain they experience. That can lead directly to unsustainable and unsafe practices like poor training for workers or increased use of dangerous chemicals like highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) in an attempt to secure crop yields. Both increase the risk of contamination.
Some of the greatest destabilising risks facing the feed sector today are sustainability challenges. Droughts, floods, and extreme heat linked to climate change have already caused price spikes, water contamination, and more pressure from pests. And we know that climate change disruption will only intensify as the availability of feed crops reduces, diseases and pathogens spread in new ways, and mycotoxins become more prevalent. While prevention is better than a cure, it is worth acknowledging that innovation and technology are playing a key role in adapting to producing feed materials in a changing climate, and over time they will help mitigate these destabilising influences.
Just as the instability from sustainability risks can create feed safety problems, emerging feed safety risks can also create instability. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), for example, has the potential to undermine animal and human health and impact both the supply and demand for feed. The inappropriate use of antibiotics in feed around the world continues to drive antibiotic-resistance which limits their effectiveness. The residue can also enter the environment through manure, runoff, and wastewater, which can contribute to antibiotic-resistant bacteria in natural ecosystems.
Safe and responsible practices are enormously stabilising influences, and help a dynamic global sector operate in both an efficient and future-proof manner.
We are one global chain
We support companies internationally. Across different regions and supply chains, we see safety and sustainability progressing at different speeds – and it’s understandable that your company might want to see results in one or the other depending on the needs of the moment.
But at a global and sector-wide level, we are firmly aware that a safe feed sector is an integral precondition for a sustainable feed sector. It is the only way sustainable feed products will be able to scale and make an impact.
And that’s why we offer certification solutions for both that can mutually reinforce each other. GMP+ Feed Safety Assurance (FSA) certification helps companies reduce waste, safely use circular feed materials, and build trust in innovative feed products. And GMP+ Feed Responsibility Assurance (FRA) certification, like our recently launched Feed LCA standard, can open doors, identify hotspots, and make your business run both more efficiently and sustainably.
Feed safety is a core investment in a sustainable future for both food and feed. And sustainability is a business opportunity, made possible by safe processes. Whether you are already active in sustainability, or are taking your first steps, then our range of GMP+ FRA certifications is a valuable and complementary support tool.