Wine’s Leftovers Could Help Wean Chicken Farms Off Antibiotics

Every year, millions of gallons of wine are pressed, leaving behind a mountain of pulpy residue—grape skins, seeds, stems and peels—that wineries struggle to dispose of. Now, researchers say this overlooked byproduct could find a new life on the farm, as a replacement for the antibiotics routinely added to chicken feed.

The study, “Dietary grape pomace mitigates high-NSP-induced inflammation and production loss via microbiome-SCFA-Immune mediated pathways,” published in npj Biofilms and Microbiomes by a team of Cornell food scientists, tested grape pomace as an additive in broiler chicken diets, comparing it head-to-head against zinc bacitracin, one of the most widely used antibiotic growth promoters in the poultry industry.

The results are striking, said corresponding author Elad Tako, associate professor in the Department of Food Science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, suggesting that a modest half-percent inclusion of grape pomace in feed can nearly match the antibiotic’s performance—improving weight gain, feed efficiency and gut health in birds raised on an inflammation-inducing diet.