This thesis was a part of the ongoing project called Hyötyteuras-hanke in HAMK University of Applied Sciences. The project is financed by The Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation. The aim of this thesis was to find out the composition and properties of inedible by-product fractions, bone and keratin-rich material produced by the meat industry. The aim was also to find out the present applications, products and the new utilization possibilities.

In Finland the slaughterhouses and the meat industry produce annually over 200 000 tons of animal by-products and most of them are inedible parts of carcasses or wastes, which are mainly channeled to destruction plants or used as fur animal feed. The amount of the fraction that is used as fur animal feed is decreasing in the future, therefore new possibilities must be found to utilize animal by-products.

The sources of information that were used in this thesis were expert interviews, patent and research release databases, journal articles, literature of meat field and Internet. During the thesis project it became clear that the animal by-products and their utilization are quite rare subjects in the literature, researches and conferences in the meat field.

As a result of the study it can be stated that the inedible by-products contain valuable components that have a significant value of upgrading and potential recovery targets. The largest utilization potential is in the phosphorus contained in the bones. Because phosphorus is a limited natural resource, it would be important to develop an industrial method for extracting a pure fraction of phosphorus from bones. Generally, the usage of bulk animal by-products as energy, in biofuel production is increasing world-wide but the review of these applications was limited outside of the study.