Experiences of using the fruit waste of the modern Hungarian pálinka fermentation technology for the foraging of extensively kept grey cattle

Abstract

In this article, the authors report on the experiences of six years of foraging, describing how the fruit wastes generated in the Pannonhalmi Pálinkárium are utilized for foraging Hungarian grey cattle. The goal is not the control or improvement of the cattle’s growth indices but the problem-free, continuous and eco-friendly disposal of the fruit waste. They have found that the fruit waste or pomace is virtually nothing else than protein-enriched sugar-free fruit, and that during the utilization of this they have to maximally adapt to the cattle’s life-cycle, biological nature and environmental factors, and they will repay you by eating the pomace. They conclude that the grey cattle are a skin-and-hairs-covered bioreactor, which provides an economical service for the distillery through the utilization of the fruit waste. Nowadays, 150,000-200,000 tons of fruit waste is produced every year, and only a few percent of this is utilized in ruminant forage. By writing this article, the authors would like to expand our very scarce knowledge on this topic.