Rendering Association Changes Name

The National Renderers Association (NRA), the professional organization that represents the North American rendering industry, has changed its name to theNorth American Renderers Association(NARA), unveiled a new logo and introduced a new, sustainability-focused tagline:

Rendering and Sustainability

Rendering is a highly sustainable method of preventing and reducing food waste that has been practiced for centuries yet is not widely understood nor is its highly valuable contribution to global sustainability discussed or generally recognized.

Rendering takes leftover, undesired, or uneaten livestock and poultry meat (and used cooking oil) and safely and hygienically processes it to create new products so that nothing is wasted.

Roughly 50% of an animal is considered inedible by people. Rendering reclaims this otherwise wasted food (protein, bone, fat), as well as used cooking oil from restaurants, and transforms it into ingredients for countless new goods, such as nutritious animal food (Including pet food), biofuel, and household and industrial products.

Renderers recycle this material into 19 billion pounds of fat, oil, and protein products a year. As a result, huge volumes of meat leftovers and used cooking oil are kept out of landfills, resulting in a net reduction of carbon emissions. Rendering avoids at least 90% of potential greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) compared with industrial composting and sequesters five times the amount of GHGs as it emits. In fact, rendering’s annual GHG reduction is equivalent to removing over 12 million cars from the road.

“Most people don’t even understand what rendering is, let alone include it in the sustainability conversation,” said Ridley Bestwick, Chairman of the North American Renderers Association and Director of Finance & Chief Financial Officer of West Coast Reduction Ltd. “In fact, rendering is a huge player in the reduction of food waste and in environmental, social, and economic sustainability.”

By reclaiming and converting these animal leftovers and used cooking oil into new products, rendering helps customers and consumers to be more sustainable. In addition to lowering GHGs, rendering generates clean water, reduces animal agriculture’s environmental footprint, and provides thousands of full-time jobs. Rendering jobs are here to stay since they cannot be exported due to the raw and perishable nature of the material our industry reclaims. This supports families and local communities from coast to coast in America and Canada, many in rural areas.

New name and tagline

The association was formed in 1933 and has carried its original name and acronym, the National Renderers Association (NRA), for over 85 years.

The change to North American Renderers Association (NARA) differentiates the association with a name and acronym unique to the agriculture and sustainability industries. It ensures more accurate results on internet search engines and also clearly includes our Canadian rendering members, as the word National connotes an association whose members are only from the United States.

“This was a highly positive change for our association since a more unique name and acronym make it easier for those looking for rendering information to find it,” explained Bestwick. “Educating about rendering’s massive contribution to global sustainability is one of NARA’s most important goals. We want to educate people and get rendering into the sustainability conversation so both current and incoming generations understand its importance. We believe this name change will help us to do that.”

The association’s new tagline “Reclaiming Resources, Sustainably” was chosen to focus on rendering’s important and fundamental contributions to sustainability, its prevention and reduction of food waste, and that in rendering, nothing is wasted.

For more information on the sustainability of rendering, visitnantionalrenderers.org.