Sunday: Turning food into dirt.




Welcome to hog heaven.


They always get a hot meal -- thanks to a unique system that cooks their food right in the truck. They eat and sleep in a spacious outdoor pen.

"For them, it's like a bed and breakfast," said Luke Barthold, 24, as he dumped the recycled food waste into the pen.



Scraps from schools and restaurants are recycled into food for the hogs on Pete Barthold&#8217;s hog farm in St. Francis, Minn. (Pioneer Press: John Doman)
Scraps from schools and restaurants are recycled into food for the hogs on Pete Barthold's hog farm in St. Francis, Minn. (Pioneer Press: John Doman)

It has advantages over other forms of recycling. It removes food scraps that would have ended up in landfills, producing methane. It's the only method of food-scrap recycling that produces food, instead of compost.

And it's done without a dime of government subsidies -- a point of pride for Barthold.

Saving the environment was not on the agenda for Barthold's grandfather Leroy when he started the business in 1927.

"They gave him a pig, and he had to get something to feed it, so he stopped at a restaurant," said Barthold. Leroy Barthold's farm was in Fridley, where Totino-Grace High School is today.


Only lately has it become trendy -- thanks to a growing appreciation of its environmental benefits.




He pays Barthold $4 per 60-gallon container. In September, having food scraps hauled away in 40 containers cost him $160 -- cheaper than trash removal.


"We do this because we think it's the right thing to do," he said. "It's not a marketing tool. You won't see this in an ad -- 'Come to Heartland because we do this.' "

It's the only way he has to recycle food.

"We would love to be able to compost," Russo said. But there is no citywide composting program for St. Paul businesses. A program proposed for 2013 would provide curbside pickup of food scraps for the city's homes but not it businesses.

Zack Hansen appreciates what Barthold is doing.

But Hansen, Ramsey County's environmental health director, said the food-to-hogs program can't replace composting because the hog feed must be 100 percent food -- no paper.




On a recent Wednesday night, a Heartland Restaurant patron ordered a $36 Limousin strip steak with "green cabbage, banana peppers, pumpkin and cranberry compote."




A lucky pig carries a carrot around the sty. (Pioneer Press: John Doman)


"You can hear it working," he said.


The food reaches 200 degrees to kill germs. It is usually cooled for several hours before the hogs get it -- Barthold doesn't want any pigs with burned lips.

The contents are then dumped in a feed bin. The slop was tan-colored, with a list of ingredients that the day before were edible to people -- melons, eggplant, bread, apples, peppers and bunches of broccoli.

Somewhere in the mix were leftovers of the $36 steak.

Barthold's son Luke -- who operates a hog farm of his own -- wheeled a back-end loader around to scoop it up.



Barthold's hogs have free rein in their outdoor pens. "They get sunlight. They run around. They get rained on," he said.


Barthold likes to watch them eat. When one grabbed an apple away from another hog, Barthold played announcer: "I am leaving with this treat right now!"

He pointed to another: "See that one? Ooooh, I got a carrot!"

He has dropped his cellphone into the mess before -- which is not recommended. The phone bears a scar -- cracks inflicted when a hog pounced on it and bit it before spitting it out.

Barthold drove back to his house, still chuckling about the antics of the hogs. "My living is off my hogs," he said.
