At a meeting of the National Renderers Association (NRA) Board of Directors last Friday, they voted to rescind the policy which recommended the exclusion of the collection of sheep materials for rendering.

The NRA policy, which has been in place for many years, recommended voluntary guidelines for renderers not to collect or render sheep material for animal protein (meat and bone meal) use. This was initially put into practice based on a theory of the correlation of scrapie with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Since that time, more scientific information has become available and with the implementation of the 1997 feed rule prohibiting the feeding of mamalian derived materials to ruminants, the NRA policy was no longer relevent for BSE risk reduction.

According to the letter from NRA to the American Sheep Industry Association, A renderers decision to collect or not collect sheep material will now be based on marketing needs rather than on regulations.

This is good news for the U.S. sheep producers and processors who have struggled with offal disposal options for the past 16 years. There will likely be several renderers who are not exporting meat and bone meal that will now be willing to process offal from sheep, commented Paul Rodgers, deputy director of animal health for ASI.

Source: ASI Weekly
May 13, 2005

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