by David R. Stone
Rendering, which has traditionally been an integral part of the meat industry, is being seen in a different light.
Some packers, who have been sitting on the sidelines, refusing to enter the rendering game, are finally discovering its short- and long-term potential to the bottom line, as well as for efficiently handling plant waste.
Frank Burnham, editor of Render magazine and author of "Rendering: The Invisible Industry," said although the U.S. rendering industry is a frequently ignored aspect of the business (despite annual sales of about $1 billion), rendering might make or break a meat plant's profitability.
All meat packers, whether they have an in-house rendering operation or sell their trimmings, scraps and offal to an outside renderer, will be affected by changes in rendering.
Leading observers cite a number of trends. The conflict between two of these trends, meeting the demand for higher quality rendered products while faced with a shortage of good raw materials, is causing some rendering operations to change.
Leaner animals and the dwindling number of in-store butchering where meat used to be further trimmed and processed are among the reasons fueling this shortage. Few retail grocery stores do much butchering anymore.
This is an especially tough issue for independent renderers who must buy their raw materials, as opposed to the slaughterhouse and meat packers with their own captive source of supply.
Those with captive sources have greater control over quality; for it's partly a matter of freshness and how the trim and offal is handled prior to rendering.
The type of raw ingredient affects quality. Pet food makers, for example, are concerned with the amount of calcium and ash in the finished product. To address this concern, the raw material can't include too much bone. Consistency is key. Renderers must produce products that meet specifications if they are to capitalize on profitable niche markets.
New process control technology makes it possible to monitor all aspects of product flow, from raw materials in the storage bin to finished products going out the door, said John Dupps, president of Germantown, Ohio-based Dupps Co., a major manufacturer of rendering equipment.
Programmable logic controllers and new computer software programs allow greater consistency in product quality and reduced labor costs, he explained.
Programmable logic controllers have been used in rendering for about five years, Dupps said. But more uses are being found for the controllers as their costs come down and reliability improves.
Dupps has seen some renderers retro-fit their lines to include programmable logic controllers, but the greatest use of the new control technology is at new plants.
Things that are now monitored continuously and controlled by computer at new plants include: status of all motors (including operating times, horsepower and amperage); temperature in various vessels, steam flow; energy consumption; and weight of finished product.
Benefits of such control includes:
-- Centralized control, allowing the operator to monitor and adjust all crucial settings from one location.
-- Consistency, as processing times are repeated according to specifications from batch to batch, with no room for operator error or guesswork.
-- Optimum efficiency in operation for reduced energy consumption.
-- Ability to produce any kind of management report desired with computations of actual (not just estimated) yield.
-- Remote trouble-shooting capability-all display screens can be seen via modem.
Computerized control will be a major feature at the new Premium Standard Farms plant now under construction in Milan, Mo. The pork plant, scheduled to open in October, will have the capacity to slaughter 7,000 hogs a day. And it will have its own rendering operation.
Only constant is change
For many renderers, new technology isn't just new controls on the same old equipment; the rendering devices themselves are changing.
For example, in response to demand for high-quality products, one rendering machinery company is offering a new continuous hydrolizer, designed to take hog hair, poultry trimmings and other hard offal, and break down the protein into digested feedstuffs.
The sales and project manager of this company explained that some raw materials need extra hydrolization to be digested by animals and people. Renderers can get a better price for products with good digestibility.
While innovations may tend to improve the profit picture for renderers, the picture is clouded by a shrinkage of the high-quality raw material supply.
At Darling International, the largest independent U.S. rendering company, Doug Anderson, vice president of marketing and operation services, has seen profits squeezed through the years.
He said trends, such as the move to boxed beef and further processing at meat plants, along with farmers raising leaner hogs and cattle, have cut the supply of high-quality materials.
Various users of rendered products have strict specifications that limit what types of raw materials can be blended into the final rendered product. Pet food meal is not the only quality market.
"There are many specialty markets," Dupps said. But he added companies that discover these niches tend to stay mum about them to prevent bringing in additional competition.
Typically, renderers can earn a 10 percent to 20 percent premium for products that meet these more demanding specifications, Dupps said.
Ernie Diliberto, director of export sales at Darling International, added another marketing point. "There is excess supply here [in rendered product]," he said. He estimated that 30 percent to 45 percent of all U.S. rendered product is exported.
On the other hand, meat packers produce a great deal of low-grade waste that must be disposed of, Anderson said. Public health and environmental questions are raised if such perishable organic materials go into landfills.
As regulations against such dumping are tightened, will renderers be better appreciated-and perhaps financially compensated-for the service they provide in removing hazardous materials from the waste stream? Without compensation, renderers may have a hard time making money on low-grade items because of competition.
One partial answer is to raise the quality of the sludge generated at meat plants. Dupps said some plants are moving away from ferrous chlorides in the treatment of their wastewater, and to more expensive food-grade coagulants so the resulting meal can be sold for a premium price to pet food makers.
There is increased pressure on renderers to open a separate production line because more sludge is coming into the market. This is a result of tighter environmental regulations, which classify the sludge as a hazardous waste. It can no longer be just flushed or dumped.
Some in the industry feel municipalities may pay renderers to take sludge away in the future.
Environmental regulations are indirectly helping renderers to collect some money, Dupps said, because packers and processors are being forced to dispose of this material in a responsible manner.
Since it is rather unprofitable for renderers to handle sludge, a meat company may not only give the sludge away for free-but might actually pay the renderer a service fee.