Anatomical Responsibility: Making Better Use of What We Already Have

More Than Breasts and Thighs

A chicken consists of much more than breasts, wings, and thighs. Yet in today’s market, only certain parts have a clear value as food. Chicken carcasses and necks are useful ingredients, but without sufficient demand, they risk being assigned a significantly lower value.

This is where anatomical responsibility offers an interesting perspective. To me, it comes down to something quite simple: if we raise an animal to produce food, we should also make an effort to use as much of it as possible.

A Natural Approach in the Kitchen

This is hardly a new concept in cooking. Making broth from bones and other parts of an animal has been common practice for generations. However, today’s food system is not always designed to make what works in an individual kitchen viable on a larger scale. We need products, processes, and consumer demand that allow more parts of the animal to retain their value as food.

This was the starting point for the chicken broth we developed together with Bjärefågel at Torsåker Farm, Axfoundation’s development center for Future Food and Materials. By using chicken carcasses and necks, we can turn more of the bird into food. My role has been to develop a broth that people genuinely want to eat, or in this case, drink. The result is Kollagen Broth, which will be available as a hot drink at Pressbyrån PBX in Stockholm starting in week 42.

Product Development with the Whole Ingredient in Mind

Developing the broth turned out to be a particularly interesting challenge in terms of flavor. We experience something served as a drink differently from the same broth used in a soup or sauce. That’s why we took a systematic approach to flavor, concentration, and mouthfeel, testing several different flavor combinations with both colleagues and guests.

We eventually settled on a Thai-inspired flavor profile with acidity and aromatic spices, which appealed to the widest range of people. Getting the concentration right was equally important. A high collagen content has a noticeable effect on mouthfeel, so the challenge was to strike the right balance between high nutritional value and a product that is genuinely delicious and enjoyable to drink.

Sipping broth is a tangible example of how anatomical responsibility can be put into practice. Through product development, parts of an animal that currently have lower demand can be used as food and given greater value. But for this approach to work in practice, the products also need to be appealing, relevant, and easy to incorporate into people’s everyday lives.

A Tangible Product, a Broader Systemic Challenge

At Axfoundation, we see anatomical responsibility as one of several ways to address systemic challenges in both food and materials. The principle is simple: we need to get better at creating value from the entire raw material, rather than focusing only on the parts that already have the strongest market demand.

A chicken carcass being turned into broth is one example, but the same fundamental question applies to other raw materials that could be used more efficiently. What happens to the parts that don’t fit into today’s established products and value chains? And what would it take to turn them into more valuable resources?

As a chef, I like to start with the practical side of things. A whole chicken can provide several meals, and at home, I often buy a whole bird and make use of its different parts. But for this principle to make a difference at a systemic level, individual chefs and consumers changing their habits is not enough.

We also need to develop products and markets that make it possible to use more of what we already produce.

Chicken broth certainly won’t solve this challenge on its own. But it offers a clear, practical example of what anatomical responsibility can look like in action.

// Claes Grännsjö
Gastronomic Development Manager, Torsåker Farm