Q3. What legislation now prohibits catering waste from being fed to animals?
The Animal By-Products Regulation (EC) No. 1774/2002 prohibits catering waste from being fed to farmed animals. This applies in all EU member states and applied from 1 May 2003.
Q5. What is the definition of catering waste?
Catering waste means all waste food including used cooking oils originating in restaurants, catering facilities and kitchens, including central kitchens and household kitchens'. This definition also includes catering waste from vegetarian restaurants and kitchens.
Thanks SMD66 for looking into this further and providing citations...
Ok, so I'm sure I'm splitting hairs here, but DEFRA did state "used catering waste [even household kitchens] including cooking oils...". This does not necessarily specify the illegality of giving raw veggie scraps. There are a couple different ways you could read their statement. All the same, I hear your point about the potential for cross contamination.
When the Dept of Agriculture came out to do our inspection they said it was fine to give veggie scraps from our kitchen (b/c we did ask them specifically) but they made a point of saying that any scraps from restaurants/hotels/large scale production were to be avoided.
Again, maybe I'm just being a Devil's Advocate. Of course it's possible I'm in the wrong here, but considering my family eats almost no meat anyway, and whatever we do eat is raised & produced locally by our neighborhood butcher, I just can't see the harm in rinsing vegetable-based sauces from our dinner plates into the pig bucket. We never give our pigs any actual meat scraps, and I think they really benefit from the various vitamins & minerals they get from leftover fruit smoothies & yoghurt pots.
Raising pigs has always been done this way, and as long as we're not introducing meat products that literally come from around the world (where the regulations aren't as stringent) this is the way we're keeping at it. I'm not trying to be difficult, just saying what that restaurant who kick-started the epidemic did and what my family is doing are worlds apart.