AUGUSTA – Maine Agriculture Commissioner Robert Spear said this week he is setting up a meeting between agriculture officials, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection and the Maine slaughterhouse industry to outline an option to offset extreme rate increases by a Massachusetts rendering company. That option is composting renderings, which are the parts of the slaughtered animal that are not eaten, such as bones, hides and offal.

“It is simply a matter of dollars and cents,” said Spear. “We want to provide them with an option.”

Spear is working hand in hand with officials at the DEP, the agency that licenses and monitors composting sites.

The agriculture department has been researching options to rendering since Baker Commodities of Billerica, Mass., changed its rate structure a year ago, a change that boosted rendering disposal costs for Maine processors to a level many said they could not afford. Baker representatives said that the market for their processed renderings had bottomed out and they could not sell what they were picking up in Maine.

At a meeting to discuss the issue last year, Arnold Luce, owner of Luce’s Meats in North Anson, said he has seen his monthly disposal cost of hides, bones and offal increase significantly: from $50 a month to $2,000.

“I used to be charged $50 per pickup on Mondays and that could be 25 barrels,” he said. “Now the cost is $20 per barrel.”

The largest beef processor in Maine, Dana Mains at Windham Butcher Shop, saw his rendering costs jump from $600 to $82,000 a year, from a previous cost of $50 a month to $1,500 a week.

Currently, Baker Commodities is the only rendering company serving central and northern Maine slaughterhouses. The company produces animal feed and soap from the parts of the slaughtered animals that are not eaten.

Due to a fear of mad cow disease, the federal government five years ago banned the sale of all feed products created from the remains of ruminants (cattle, sheep, and goats) that are fed to other ruminants. Ruminant-to-ruminant feeding is one of the causes of the spread of mad cow disease overseas.

Unable to resell much of the 375,000 pounds of renderings they pick up from Maine slaughterhouses each week, Baker Commodities raised disposal fees.

Peter Mosher of the Department of Agriculture said Tuesday that agriculture officials have been working on experimental composting sites and they appear to be working well. Manure and sawdust are mixed with the offal and, if done correctly, insects and odors are eliminated.

“We are trying to work with some sites that are currently permitted as well as people interested in setting up some sites,” said Mosher. By mapping where Maine’s slaughterhouses are located, a complicated process since custom slaughterhouses require no state license, a central facility could be established.

David Wright, supervisor of the residual use unit of the DEP, said three licensed Maine facilities are currently composting offal. He said that some slaughter facilities might want to operate their own composting sites to save overhead.

No date or location has been set for the meeting. Spear said it will be announced soon.