Pet food manufacturing sits at an unusual point in the animal by-products system, because the industry consumes Category 3 material as a raw input and generates further by-product material as an output. Martlands is licensed and DEFRA approved for all three animal by-product categories and provides fallen stock and ABP collection across the North West, and pet food manufacturing ABP collection covers the production side of that chain. The compliance demands on a manufacturer are heavier than on most food businesses precisely because the material entering the site is already regulated.
Why Category 3 Is the Line That Matters
Category 3 material is by-product from animals fit for human consumption at the point of slaughter, and it is the only category from which pet food may be produced. That single fact drives the entire compliance architecture of a manufacturing site. Material arriving must be demonstrably Category 3, it must be traceable to its source, and it must be kept entirely separate from any material of a lower classification at every stage.
The consequence is that a manufacturer’s own outputs need equally careful handling. Trimmings, process residues, material recovered from cleaning, and product that never reaches specification are all by-products in their own right, and they retain the classification of the material they came from unless something has happened to change it. Our Category 3 ABP collection handles that stream under Animal By-Products Licence No APB/CCN21/373/8002, with Waste Carrier Licence CB/QE5406MT and Site Licence EAWML/100236.
Rejected Batches and Downgraded Material
The awkward cases are the ones where material was Category 3 on arrival and something on site has compromised it. Contamination during production, a temperature excursion, a foreign body incident, or a failure in the separation between production areas can all mean a batch can no longer be evidenced as Category 3. When that happens the material has to be handled at the appropriate category, and it cannot be returned to the pet food stream on the basis that it looked fine.
The commercial pressure to take a lenient view of these decisions is real, and it is exactly the sort of thing an audit examines. The safer and simpler position is to have a written rule about what triggers a downgrade, apply it consistently, and hold the collection documentation that shows where the downgraded material went. That record is what turns a judgement call into a defensible one.
Packaging, Former Foodstuffs and Depackaging
Manufacturers frequently take in former foodstuffs and returned product as raw material, and a proportion of that arrives packaged. Depackaging is a regulated activity in its own right and the residues from it need handling correctly, because packaging fragments in a by-product stream cause problems at every downstream processing route. Where a site is handling this material, the requirements are set out in our guidance on former foodstuffs and bakery waste.
The practical point for a manufacturing site is container discipline. Separate containment for each stream, clearly labelled, with leak-proof containers and a documented emptying schedule, does more to keep a site compliant than any amount of written procedure. We supply leak-proof containers as part of the service for exactly this reason.
What Happens to the Material After It Leaves
Manufacturers are increasingly asked by their own customers and auditors to explain where their by-product material ends up, and the answer needs to be specific. Material collected by Martlands goes to an approved processing route, and we are a DEFRA approved processing and sampling facility rather than a broker passing material along a chain. Our overview of what happens to animal by-products after collection explains the routes in plain terms, and our piece on what is renderable waste covers the processing side in more detail.
Being able to name the operator, the licence numbers and the processing route in a single sentence is worth a great deal in a customer audit. Being able to produce the Commercial Documents that evidence it is worth more.
Documentation and Audit Readiness
Every collection generates a Commercial Document, and a Waste Transfer Note where the material is handled as waste. For a manufacturing site these support local authority inspection, ISO 14001 certification, sustainability reporting and customer audits equally, and they need to be filed in a way that lets a specific date be found quickly. Bookings run through the KoLeCt system, so each collection carries a traceable reference from the point it is logged.
Manufacturers producing material across more than one category should keep the documentation separated by stream rather than filed chronologically. An auditor asking about Category 3 handling should not have to work through Category 2 paperwork to find it.
The North West Manufacturing Base
The region carries a substantial food manufacturing presence, much of it clustered along the M6 and M61 corridors and around the Lancashire towns, and a proportion of it feeds directly or indirectly into pet food and rendering supply chains. Sites in the Lancashire butchers waste collection area include cutting plants and processors generating exactly the Category 3 raw material that pet food manufacturing depends on, and we collect across both ends of that chain.
The wider requirements applying to food manufacturing sites generally, including sites that are not pet food specific but generate the same material, are covered in our guidance on animal by-products from food manufacturing. Where a site also handles carcass meat directly, our butchers waste collection covers that element.
Setting Up Collections
Manufacturing sites vary enormously in what they generate and how much storage they hold, so the right arrangement is a matter of looking at the site rather than quoting a standard schedule. Call 01704 776977 to discuss your streams and volumes, or arrange a site visit through contact us.
