PolyPig: Biorefining of agri-food by-products for enhanced pig welfare and nutrition

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**PolyPig aims to address a commercial and animal welfare need for sustainably produced feed to protect the health of piglets and improve survival and growth post-weaning.** This is desirable because of high mortality rates and disease incidence associated with early stages of pig development, due to factors such as oxidative stress that causes gut damage.Until recently, piglet feeds contained high levels of zinc oxide as an anti-microbial and growth promoter; however, this has been identified as a contributor to environmental contamination and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Feeding of therapeutic levels of zinc oxide has been banned in Europe from June 2022; therefore, it is imperative that more sustainable alternative solutions are available.**The objective of PolyPig is to develop prior studies that demonstrated supplementation of piglet feed with polyphenols provides desirable protective effects; improving piglet gut health and survival.** Polyphenols are naturally occurring anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant compounds present in a wide range of plant materials, especially red beetroot. Large quantities of beetroot waste are generated from harvesting and processing for human consumption, exploitation of these by-products would provide a sustainable source of polyphenols for use as feed supplements.**A further objective is to implement sustainable methods for efficient polyphenol extraction from agri-food by-products (AFBPs).** This is necessary to separate the polyphenols from the plant fibre which is undesirable. Fibre inclusion in piglet feed exacerbates gut health problems associated with weaning. Previously developed energy efficient 'green' extraction and purification methods will be evaluated and optimised to enable large-scale processing of beetroot by­products.**The innovative combination of scalable biorefining of AFBPs for sustainable production of polyphenol supplemented piglet feed will create significant benefits for the farming community.** Improved productivity and growth, with enhanced meat quality and product shelf-life, enable increased exports of pig products and reduced importation. AFBP exploitation will generate additional revenue streams for farmers, divert waste from landfill and help achievement of net-zero carbon emission targets. PolyPig will initially focus on extraction of polyphenols from red beetroot, however, other agricultural and food waste-streams can also be exploited.Additional opportunities for innovative animal feed formulations and new product development will be generated, whilst the biorefinery engineering designs developed during this project will be scalable and applicable to novel by-products. **Manufacturing of innovative animal feeds based on AFBP-derived supplementation will help grow the UK economy and create employment opportunities, while supporting a transition to a low-carbon circular bioeconomy.**