Glossary

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Agri-business: The group of industries dealing with agricultural produce and services to agriculture.

Agriculture: Anything having to do with farming (raising crops or livestock for food, fiber or fur; or the industry which includes marketing, processing and trade in these products).

AQC: Refers to Air Quality Control, and refers to all components of the air control systems in the plant, including ducting, primary scrubbers and the biofilter.

Animal by-products: As raw material these are all the animal tissues from the livestock industry which are not for direct use as human food. After rendering, for example, they become products such as meat and bone meal (MBM), blood meal, tallow and animal fats.

Animal fat: An aggregate term generally understood to be fat from mammals.

Animal feed (Agrifeed): Edible material that provides nourishment in the form of energy and for building tissues. Contributes to the normal physiological function and metabolic homeostasis of an organism, by the oral provision of nutrients to any kind or class of animal.

Ash: A critical indicator of meal quality, it is the percentage of the residue of mineral matter remaining after incineration. The ash content varies with the raw material, reflecting the ratio of bone to soft offal processed.

Biofilter: Biological Oxidation system providing odour destruction treatment for all process air from the plant.

Biodegradable: Something that breaks down to its component parts in the environment.

Bloodmeal: The dried and powdered blood of animals, used in animal feeds and as a nitrogen-rich fertilizer for plants. Usually comes from cattle, pork and poultry as a slaughterhouse byproduct.

BSE: bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

By-products: All discarded material from animals or poultry and other sources that are processed in a rendering plant.

Choice white grease: A specific grade of mostly pork fat defined by hardness, color, fatty acid content, moisture, insolubles, unsaponifiables, and free fatty acids.

Color (FAC): A critical indicator of tallow/fat quality, it is quantified by comparing a sample of filtered liquid fat to the Fat Analysis Committee (FAC) standard and assigning it a number from 1 (lightest) to 45 (darkest). Other tests are also commonly used. R&B (refined and bleached) color defines tallow grade. For example, the specification for extra fancy tallow is usually 1 red, but is sometimes specified at 0.5 red.

Color, Lovibond: A color reading obtained by matching the sample of tallow or grease with standard red and yellow color glasses in specially designed colour comparator equipment. This gives a more precise reading than the ‘F.A.C.” color.

Color, refined and bleached (R&B): The Lovibond color of fat refined with alkali and bleached with a definite quantity of standard bleaching earth.

Continuous cooker: heating equipment used in rendering process, where the raw material through the system is flowing in an essentially constant manner and without cessation or interruption.

Continuous rendering: Most common method of rendering whereby a continuous flow of shredded raw animal by-products are cooked/dried.

Control point (HACCP – CP): Any point, step, or procedure at which biological, physical, or chemical factors can be controlled.

Critical Control Point (HACCP - CCP): A point, step, or procedure at which control can be applied and a rendering safety hazard can be prevented, eliminated, or reduced to acceptable levels.

Deadstock: All on farm mortalities or fallen animals processed in a rendering plant. These are principally hogs, cattle, and horses.

Drum Truck: Straight or van style trucks with the box modified to facilitate the efficient and safe management of full grease drum collection from clients and the deposit of an empty exchange drum.

Edible rendering: Fats and proteins produced for human consumption which is under the inspection and processing standards established by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) or the US Department of Agriculture, Food and Safety Inspection Service (USDA/FSIS).

Edible tallow: Exclusively beef, this product is rendered from fat trimmings and bones taken from further processing at a slaughterhouse. The product is of light color and low moisture, insolubles, unsaponifiables, and free fatty acids. The tallow may be further refined, polished, and deodorized to become a cooking fat.

Fat: Fat, refers specifically to inedible tallow and grease.

Fat Content: An indicator of meal quality of animal and poultry protein meals is the residual fat left alter centrifuging and pressing, usually 8 to 11% for meat meals and 10 to 14% for poultry meals.

Fat, light: Light fat refers to the Top White, Fancy, Choice, and grades of tallow, and the Choice White and A White grades of grease.

Fatty Acid Profile: is the relative amounts of the 16 possible fatty acids as determined by gas chromatography.

Feed grade animal fat: Also known as “Fat product, feed grade” is any fat product which does not meet the definitions for animal fat, vegetable fat or oil, hydrolyzed fat. It must be sold on its specifications which will include the minimum percentage of total fatty acids, the maximum percentage of unsaponifiable matter, the maximum percentage of insoluble impurities, the maximum percentage of free fatty acids and moisture.

Feedstock: A material used as a raw material in an industrial process.

FFA Maximum: When required, a Quality Control specification to be negotiated between buyer and seller on a contract-by- by contract basis.

Free fatty acids (FFA): A critical indicator of tallow/fat quality, it is the amount of fatty acids split from the triglyceride or fat molecule and dissolved in the fat, are a measure of the hydrolysis that has taken place within the fat molecule. Time, temperature, raw material inputs and the presence of moisture, bacteria, and enzymes influence the hydrolysis of fat into free fatty acids and glycerol.

Grease: Household and restaurant fat (salvage). Fats salvaged from household and restaurant cooking.

Impurities, soluble: Mineral matter, usually lime, combined with fatty acids soluble in the fat. The per cent is determined by heating a weighed filtered sample of fat until only the ash of the soluble mineral matter remains.

Independent rendering plant (Street Renderer): Obtains its byproduct material from a variety of sources which may include any or all of abattoirs, packing houses, butcher shops, grocery stores, further processors and dead animals collected from farms and/or abattoirs.

Inedible: Fats and proteins produced for animal, poultry, and fish consumption or for other non-edible uses.

Insoluble Impurities: A critical indicator of tallow/fat quality, it is defined as the small amount of sediment that is included as a routine analysis for all fats and oils including tallow and is the “I” portion of the MIU analysis. Trade of tallow (less than 0.15% impurities) and derivatives made from this tallow should not be restricted regardless of a country’s bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) status.

Integrated or dependent rendering plant: Operates in conjunction with a meat slaughterhouse, or poultry processor whose own byproduct materials are processed on-site.

Lard: Edible grease, the process and parameters of which are the same as for edible beef tallow, but with pork as the raw material.

Meat and Bone Meal (MBM): Is a dry rendered protein product of the rendering industry primarily used in the formulation of animal feed.

Mill, To Mill, verb: To grind ingredients to make Meal or noun – a synonym for Meal.

Offal: All material from the animal’s body cavity processed in a rendering plant.

Paunch: The large stomach of cattle, horses, and sheep.

Poultry fat: Animal fat produced from poultry.

Protein Content: A critical indicator of meal quality, it varies with the product: 45 to 55% for meat meals with 50% being the standard; 80 to 90% for blood meal; 58 to 70% for poultry byproduct meal; 80 to 90% for feather meal; 57 to 77% for fish meal.

Quality control: Any activity that helps to maximize the value of the raw material and through all phases of the manufacturing process.

Rendering process: A process of using high temperature and pressure to convert animal by-products with no or very low value into safe, nutritional, and economically valuable products. It is a combination of crushing, mixing, cooking, pressurizing, fat separation, water evaporation, microbial and enzyme inactivation.

Ruminant: Animal that chews the cud (partly digested food) regurgitated from its rumen, and has a stomach of four compartments. Cattle, sheep, goats, deer, and elk are ruminants.

Sani-bulk Trailers: Steel tankers/trailers, of mixed capacities, for the raw material collection service for greases and used oils. These units are equipped with a chain operating lifting system to lift, rotate and dump grease tanks/bins into the trailer via top loading hydraulic doors. Materials in these units are completely sealed in the body of the unit and the materials are typically steam heated to melt the raw grease prior to further processing.

Scrubber: Pollution control device for containing air exhausted from rendering plant with a water solution containing deodorizing chemicals for odour removal prior to further odour treatment/destruction in the biofilter.

Tallow: Primarily from beef fat, defined by hardness, moisture, insolubles, unsaponifiables, free fatty acids, fatty acid content, and color with a titer of 40.0°C or higher.

Titer: Is the solidification point of the fatty acids, an important characteristic in fats used to produce soap or fatty acids. Trade practice is to designate animal fats with titers of 40°C and up as tallow and those below 40°C as grease.

Yellow grease: This material is usually made up of restaurant greases (fats and oils from cooking). Another source could be from rendering plants producing lower quality tallow, fats, and greases.

Yield: An expression of the amount of product (nominal or actual) that can be manufactured from a given input of raw material. Also referred to as product recovery.