Animal Bones Processing Industry Introduction

After animals are slaughtered, meat is what the most people need, and the demand for meat and its big economic benefits are the focus of social concern. However, the animal bones are treated as tailpieces with no use value, so they are not getting good utilization, which causes a huge waste of available resources, and is not good for creating economic profits and protecting the environment. After bone processing by bone process equipment, such as bone crushing machine and bone paste grinding machine, animal bones can become valuable materials.

I. Feasibility of Processing Animal Bones

1. Animal Bones Have Lots of Nutrition

The intensive study of animal bones makes people have a better understanding of animal bones nutrition. Bones account for 10%-20% of animal body weight, and it is a kind of meat by-product packed with alimentation elements. The fresh bones have a similar protein and fat content with meat.

90% protein in the animal bones is collagen, ossein, and chondroitin that can strengthen the metabolism of the human cortical cells; the amino acid in animal bones with balanced ratio and high level is a kind of quality protein, and it has linoleic acid and many other fatty acids that is necessary for human body; also there are a lot of calcium-phosphate salt, bio-active substances, magnesium, various metallic elements and vitamins in fresh bones; the bone marrow has phospholipids, phosphoprotein that is indispensable for human brain. The content of calcium and phosphorus of bones are 19.3% and 9.39% respectively, and their ration is 2:1 which is the optimal proportion for human body absorption. So the animal bones are a real nutrient source.

2. There are Many Derivative Products of Animal Bones with Wide Uses

Usually, the traditional processing of animal bones is to make them into bone powder or bone paste. The derivative products of animal bones are applied in multiple areas: condiments, health-care products, nourishment, animal feeds, industrial raw materials, etc.

II. What Products We Can Get by Processing Animal Bones

Animal bone products have a wide variety that can be divided into two broad categories: the extractive products and the all-bone-using products.

1. All-bone-using Animal Bone Products

The all-bone-using product is to grind the fresh animal bones into particles of different sizes, and then process the particle into special products based on manufacturing requirements. And the major productions include bone paste and bone powder that can be an alternative of meats, or nutrition additives to be added into meat-based products to improve their flavors.

1). Bone Paste

Processing animal bones into the bone paste is an ideal and widely-adopted method to take advantage of animal bones that are preferred to be discarded in the first place. The research of using fresh animal bones to make edible bone paste dates from the 1970s, which is firstly succeeds in Denmark, Sweden, etc. developed countries, then has a rapid spread in Japan, America, etc., and Japan especially has great achievement.
The bone paste is produced by ultra-fine bone grinding machine, grinding the animal bone into particles sized by 200-400 mesh. The bone paste tastes as good as meat, but with more nutrients, like the calcium, protein, fat, vitamin, collagen, chondroitin and micro-elements. Also the bone paste consists of the phospholipid and phosphoprotein for human brain need; the chondroitin, ossein for supplementing body energy and delaying senescence.
The bone paste can be employed as the raw material to make bone paste cookies, high-calcium rice noodles, meatballs, meat stuffing, sausage, rice dumplings and bone paste floss.

Bone paste production process

Fresh animal bones—bones pre-treatment—bones freezing—bones crushing—water adding—bones grinding

2). Bone Powder

The bone powder is high in kalium, calcium, phosphorus, iron, protein, micro-element, amino acid, etc., and the ratio of calcium and phosphorus is 2:1 which is close to the ratio for human body needs, so bone powder is an ideal product for calcium supplement. The edible superfine bone powder can be used as food nutritive fortifier; the crude bone powder can be used as an additive for animal feed to help animal growing or can be used as efficient organic fertilizer to improve acid soil and promote crop growth.
The superfine bone powder is easy to be absorbed by the human body to make better use of its nutrition. The superfine bone powder is preferred to use for fast food, snack food, puffed food, catering food, health food, and seasoning, etc.

Crude bone powder production process

Fresh animal bones—bones degreasing—bones drying—bones crushing—finished bone powder

Edible superfine bone powder production process

Fresh animal bones—bones cleaning—bones dehydrating—bones crushing—crude bones grinding—fine bones grinding—bones degreasing—superfine bones grinding—cooling and packing—finished bone powder

2. Animal Bones Extractive Products

The animal bones extractive product is to use hydrolyzing, separating, etc. process technology to separate and extract the effective components from animal bones, which involves bone oil, bone glue, gelatin, hydrolysis animal protein (HAP) and calcium and phosphorus preparations, etc. And these extractive products are widely employed in medicine and food industries.

III. Animal Bones Have Bright Future in Food Production

In the 1980s, the fresh animal bone exploitation started to carry weight around the world. Nowadays, it is becoming a kind of unique and new serviceable source and widely used for food, industry, medicine and agriculture fields. Many countries have lent full support to the development of animal bones. Japan and America are the two active and leading countries for developing and researching fresh animal bones products. Some national management organizations and large-scale production enterprises of bone products are available in America, Japan, Estonia, and England, etc.

So keep developing comprehensive utilization level of fresh animal bones and manage bones by deep and fine processing to produce wide ranges of new products to make the best use of animal bones is the trend of animal bones processing with large potential.