The North West has more independent breweries and small distilleries than at any point in living memory, and brewery food waste collection is one of the compliance areas those businesses most often discover late. Spent grain, spent hops, trub, yeast slurry, out-of-date packaged product and taproom kitchen waste are not one waste stream but several, and some of them sit squarely inside the animal by-products framework. Martlands is a family-run, DEFRA approved operator in Burscough licensed for all three ABP categories, and our fallen stock and ABP collection business serves food and drink producers across Lancashire, Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Cheshire.
This article sets out which brewery outputs are regulated as animal by-products, which are not, and what documentation a producer needs to hold when the environmental health officer or the assurance auditor asks.
Separating the Streams Before Anything Else
A brewery generates outputs that look similar and are governed differently. Spent grain and spent hops are plant material and, where they leave the site clean and are used as animal feed, they are handled under feed law rather than as animal by-products. That route is legitimate and long established, and many producers supply local farms directly. It depends entirely on the material never having been in contact with material of animal origin and on the receiving farm being registered appropriately.
The picture changes the moment animal-derived material enters. Finings made from isinglass, a taproom kitchen producing meat and dairy waste, packaged product containing milk or lactose, and any material that has been through a kitchen where meat is handled all fall into scope as Category 3 animal by-product material. So does any batch of spent grain that has been mixed with catering waste. Mixing is the single most common way a producer loses the feed route entirely.
Where Category 3 Applies
Category 3 covers former foodstuffs of animal origin that are no longer intended for human consumption for commercial reasons or because of a defect, and it covers catering waste. A brewery with a taproom kitchen is a catering business in the eyes of the regulations, and its kitchen waste must leave the site through a licensed route rather than in a general waste bin. Our Category 3 ABP collection service handles that material under Animal By-Products Licence No APB/CCN21/373/8002, with Waste Carrier Licence CB/QE5406MT and Site Licence EAWML/100236.
Out-of-specification or short-dated packaged product containing animal-derived ingredients is treated the same way, and cannot be composted on site or given away. Our note on Category 3 animal by-products explains what the material becomes once it has been processed.
The Separation Law Has Changed the Baseline
The requirement for businesses in England to separate food waste from general waste has moved this from good practice to a legal duty, and enforcement is increasingly visible on smaller premises. A brewery that has always put taproom waste into a general commercial bin is no longer compliant simply because the volumes are small. Our guidance on the new business food waste separation law sets out what premises of different sizes need to have in place.
The practical consequence is a separate, sealed, leak-proof container for food waste, collected on a frequency that matches production. Martlands provides leak-proof containers to food waste collection customers, which removes the most common cause of failure, which is a bin that leaks in a yard shared with the public.
Storage in a Working Brewery
Brewery yards are busy, wet and often shared with a public taproom entrance. Food waste and by-product containers need to be sited where they are accessible to a collection vehicle, away from the customer route, away from any open cask or fermentation area, and on a surface that can be washed down to a foul drain rather than a surface water drain. Lidded containers prevent the fly and vermin problems that otherwise arrive within a fortnight of the first warm week. Our guidance on storage of animal by-products covers the requirements in more detail.
The Documentation a Producer Must Hold
Every collection generates paperwork, and the type depends on the material. Animal by-product movements are accompanied by a Commercial Document recording the category, the nature and quantity of the material, the date, the vehicle and the receiving premises. Other waste movements are accompanied by a Waste Transfer Note. Both need to be retained and both are asked for during an environmental health inspection or a retailer audit.
Producers supplying supermarkets or working toward a technical standard find that this documentation does more work than expected. It supports ISO 14001 environmental management systems and feeds directly into sustainability reporting, because it evidences the tonnage diverted from general waste. It supports an ISO 14001 environmental management system directly.
Collection Across the Brewing Belt
Independent brewing in our area clusters around the towns rather than the countryside, on trading estates and in railway arches, and collection is planned accordingly. We serve producers through Liverpool food waste collection, across the Wigan and Leigh belt, and through Preston food waste collection and the central Lancashire corridor. Proximity to the M6, M58 and M62 keeps frequencies flexible for sites whose output rises sharply around events and bank holidays.
Getting Set Up
To arrange a collection schedule, discuss container requirements or check how a particular output should be classified, call 01704 776977 or use the contact us page. We will confirm which streams are in scope, supply the containers, and provide the documentation at every collection.
