Source of the Variation in Meat and Bone Meal Nutritional Quality

The gross composition, gross amino acid content, apparent ileal amino acid digestibility and apparent ileal digestible amino acid content from 64 commercially produced meat and bone meals were statistically analysed. The samples were produced by 22 plants over a 2.5 year period with eight plants using batch dry rendering and 14 plants using low temperature rendering. A linear model with method and time of year (period) as fixed effects, plant within method as a random effect and sheep percent as a covariate was fitted to the composition data. The majority of the variation in the gross composition, amino acid digestibility and digestible amino acid content was explained by differences between plants using the same method. Neither rendering season nor origin of the raw materials contributed significantly to the observed variation in meat and bone meal protein quality. Rendering method (low temperature or batch rendering) had a significant effect on the variation observed in gross fat content, gross energy content, pepsin nitrogen digestibility, protein solubility and total lanthionine content. The digestibility of a number of amino acids and the apparent digestible content of arginine, cysteine, aspartic acid, proline and hydroxyproline were also significantly affected by rendering method. On average, batch dry and low temperature rendering systems produce meat and bone meals of similar nutritional quality. The variation between plant and within plant, however, is large, indicating that purchasing meat and bone meal from the same plant does not guarantee a consistent quality.