A practice as old as hospitality itself — giving kitchen leftovers to pigs — has been banned in the European Union for more than two decades. The ban is no administrative whim but the consequence of a concrete epidemic: the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak in the United Kingdom, linked to the feeding of untreated catering waste to pigs. The epidemic led to the culling of millions of animals and estimated damages in the billions of euros.
What the rules actually say
Regulation (EC) No 1069/2009 on animal by-products prohibits the feeding of farmed animals — other than fur animals — with catering waste. The term is defined broadly: implementing Regulation (EU) No 142/2011 defines catering waste as "all waste food including used cooking oil originating in restaurants, catering facilities and kitchens, including central kitchens and household kitchens."
In other words: it does not matter whether meat is involved. Vegetables, bread and side dishes from a guest's plate are treated identically, because in the kitchen they may have come into contact with products of animal origin. Food residues from a professional kitchen are classified as Category 3 material and must be collected, transported and disposed of in accordance with national waste rules.
Why this matters to the operator
Responsibility does not end at the kitchen door. A facility that hands residues to an unregistered collector — or gives them away "for animals" — remains responsible for that material's fate. For a professional kitchen this means the legal options are handover to an authorised collector or treatment on site, with a documented record of quantities.
Griffon machines treat food residues by aerobic digestion at the point where they arise, continuously, with built-in scales recording the mass of material loaded — so the facility holds its own record of what was generated and what was processed.
Sources: Regulation (EC) No 1069/2009, Art. 11; Commission Regulation (EU) No 142/2011, Annex I, point 22.