History of Food Recycling
Food Recycling is not new to the Twin Cities. Before 1951, locally, many garbage haulers who also owned farms fed restaurant and grocery store leftover food to their pigs as opposed to delivering this material to open burning dump sites. Then in 1951 the U.S. Federal Government, with the State of Minnesota Department of Animal Health as enforcers, required these Hauler/Farmers to Process or Cook the food to rid it of potentially harmful bacteria. Those haulers that wanted to continue collecting this material developed Processing and Cooking methods that since have gone the way of extensive upgrades and improvements.

Barthold Recycling is a network of these farms many of whom are now third and fourth generation family farms.

Establishing Service Standards
Over the past 8 -10 years several other local farms have tried to provide food recycling services to businesses locally but in general failed miserably due to lack of service collection consistency and performance. Some of these farms even failed to process or cook the food or restricted their activities to collecting fruit and vegetables only. Our Participating Farms have re-established industry food collection service standards. These standards must be followed by any and all farms listed on this web site.

Today
Our Family Farms currently farm over 1000 collective acres feeding processed recyclable food to several thousand pigs while providing service to hundreds of metro area commercial customers. Farms located predominantly in north metro counties are continually expanding operations and purchasing new service vehicles in an attempt to bring more and more customers onboard while creating public awareness to Minnesota’s environmental needs.

Compliance with State and Federal Laws
Our Farms are in full compliance with all state and federal laws governing local environmental issues and we take a leadership role in promoting good and responsible use of Minnesota’s land, air, and water.

Environmental Pledge
Thank you to our Minnesota based customers for Pledging along with us to demonstrate environmentally responsible behaviors. Your Pledge to Recycle and Conserve our natural resources supports our collective roles as nation wide leaders.

Handling of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW)
Recycling your food is one of the most environmentally responsible activities your business can perform. For the remainder of your Solid Waste Our Farms recommend and support the environmental initiatives of the State of Minnesota. Whenever possible, as opposed to using privately owned landfills or the use of Transfer Facilities delivering MSW to out-of-state landfills we advocate the use of local waste-to-energy or NRG Facilities as the most environmentally responsible way of disposing of Municipal Solid Waste.