Taiwan Proposes Food-Waste Traceability Rules For Feed And Animal Circular Materials

The affected sources are centrally catered schools, military and military-education institutions under the Ministry of National Defence, and correctional institutions under the Ministry of Justice that the agriculture ministry designates.

Feed Rules And Daily Records

The draft retains existing duties under the Feed Administration Act and associated feed requirements for food waste reused as an animal-feed raw material or an animal-derived circular material. The amendment does not replace feed safety, authorisation or hygiene controls, and the Ministry's notice sets no new compositional threshold for feed in the summary.

For reuse as an animal-derived circular material, waste-clearance organisations and reuse organisations would have to make daily operating records. The reuse organisation would keep operating records and related supporting documents for three years. The proposal states that Article 34(3) of the Regulations Governing General Waste Recycling, Clearance and Disposal would not apply to that route.

These duties are intended to make the source and onward flow of food waste visible. The proposal does not turn all commercial food waste into the designated circular material, nor does it establish a general permission to feed untreated catering waste to animals. Scope depends on the named institutional sources, the agriculture ministry's designation and the selected reuse route.

What Remains Proposed And What Applies Now

Existing waste and feed legislation continues to apply while consultation proceeds. The official public participation record gives 10 September 2026 as the closing date after an unusually short three-day comment period. The Ministry cites urgency and public interest for that shortened period. No commencement date is stated, so organisations should verify any later promulgation rather than assume the record duties are already operative.

Food-service bodies should identify whether kitchens fall within the listed institutional categories and whether their waste is covered by the agriculture ministry's designation. Clearance and reuse operators should test whether systems can create daily, source-to-destination records. Reuse operators should confirm that systems can retain evidence for three years. Feed businesses and livestock operators should separately confirm compliance with feed-law conditions.

The analytical insight is that Taiwan is specifying additional controls for one reuse destination while retaining feed-law requirements for both. The animal-derived circular-material route would carry daily waste-chain traceability and a targeted procedural exemption alongside feed regulation. Misclassifying the destination could therefore put the wrong operator, records and legal controls into a contract.

Related Foresight coverage includes Taiwan's revised electronics recycling fees, the EU agreement on waste-framework changes and food-waste targets and China's industrial green plan.

What Organisations Should Do

Covered institutions and contractors should map waste origin, legal destination, carrier and receiving facility in one data flow. Contracts should specify which party makes daily records, supplies evidence, retains documents and reports route changes. Stakeholders wishing to comment must act by 10 September 2026.