A Cornell-led study is putting an unlikely ingredient in the spotlight: grape pomace, the skins, seeds and stems left after winemaking. Researchers reported that adding the by-product to broiler chicken diets produced growth-promoting effects that researchers compare to antibiotic feed additives — a performance benchmark that matters for integrators, growers and feed suppliers under mounting scrutiny to reduce routine antibiotic use without sacrificing throughput.
The premise is straightforward, and the stakes are not. Antibiotic additives have long been used to promote growth in broilers, but the study found grape pomace as delivering similar production benefits while avoiding some of the public health concerns associated with antibiotic additives. In a sector where performance metrics govern decisions from diet formulation to flock management, an alternative that preserves growth while cutting antibiotic reliance is a direct operational lever, not a messaging exercise.
Grape pomace is described as “wine’s leftovers,” a mass of grape skins, seeds and stems that remains after juice is extracted for fermentation. The study’s thesis goes beyond waste utilization: It explores whether a winemaking by-product can function as an alternative to antibiotic feed additives in broiler production. That positioning matters in feed economics and supply chains because pomace is, by definition, a residual stream — and the work casts it as a potentially low-cost ingredient with a value proposition linked to both performance and stewardship.
The report says grape pomace could help “wean chicken farms off antibiotics,” tying the proposed benefit directly to growth promotion in broiler chickens. Whether the reported effect holds under commercial conditions remains an open question; if it does, the implication is a management pathway that maintains growth outcomes while reducing routine antibiotic inputs — shifting how integrators think about diet strategies and how feed additive suppliers defend antibiotic-adjacent products.
The public health framing is central to the study’s significance. By emphasizing comparable growth performance alongside reduced reliance on antibiotic additives, the study links the feed change to broader antibiotic-resistance concerns. For the poultry value chain, that connection is not abstract: Antibiotic stewardship has become a pressure point for procurement standards, brand commitments and regulatory attention, and tools that support reduced antibiotic use while keeping birds on target weight trajectories carry immediate relevance.
For now, the study elevates grape pomace from winery waste to a candidate feed ingredient with a clear industrial target: supporting broiler growth while reducing reliance on routine antibiotics. The near-term question for producers, nutritionists and suppliers is whether the performance claim stands up to the data and whether the supply and formulation realities support broader adoption as the industry continues tightening expectations around antibiotic use.
