Today's pet owners want to know petfood products not only taste good but also have nutritional or functional value.
When it comes to what they put in their pets' bowls, today's
consumers demand the best quality and nutrition. That means
petfood manufacturers and suppliers must develop and select
every ingredient and component of a formulation for maximum
effect.
Perhaps in no category does this ring more true than
palatability. "Industry and customers have required that we
take a completely different approach to palatability," said
Jennifer Radosevich, PhD, director of R&D and regulatory
affairs for Kemin Nutrisurance Inc., in a presentation at the
Colegio Brasileiro de Nutricao Animal in Brazil in 2008. "They
want to know our products not only taste good but also have
nutritional or functional value."
As more and more consumers seek to provide the same
nutritional benefits to their pets that they enjoy, they're
also looking for ways to ensure consumption of healthy
petfoods. The availability of good tasting foods containing
probiotics is leading to rapid growth in this category.
Unfortunately, says AFB International, most probiotic
species do not survive well in dry petfoods due to the low
water activity. Few live strains of probiotics survive the
stomach acids or bile acids to actually reach the gut in a
viable state. Through a partnership with Ganeden Biotech
Inc., AFB has recently created a new palatant to address this
problem.
This new product contains GanedenBC30, live spores of a
patented strain of Bacillus coagulans. The strain is
generally recognized as safe and approved by the US Food and
Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine as a
direct-fed microbial, according to AFB.
GanedenBC30 is currently available in a variety of
human food products, providing a link between benefits for
owners and their pets. The spore-forming nature of this strain
allows petfood marketers to use the probiotics in their
existing manufacturing process, applying either liquid or dry
palatants to the surface, without worry about spore survival,
AFB says. Key benefits of this approach include more uniform
distribution of the probiotics and survival throughout the
shelf-life of the petfood product (Figure 1). This brings active cultures to pets on a daily basis through
their normal diets, eliminating issues with pets not accepting
a supplement.
The spores' germination is triggered by the transition
through the pH changes between the stomach and the intestinal
tract. The pet's own system becomes the means to activate the
probiotics at the appropriate time. According to AFB, growth of
the probiotics in the intestinal tract brings:
- Improved digestive health through the production of
lactic acid;
- Improved breakdown of nutrients for better absorption;
and
- Displacement of undesirable bacteria in the gut.
Feeding studies conducted by AFB have shown growth of the
probiotics in the gut with a 780% increase in fecal spore
counts after only seven days on the feed. Currently the product
is available in the US and Canada.
Kemin employs a total palatability approach to fulfill consumer
requirements for petfoods that combine health benefits with
taste. This approach, Radosevich says, "generates thousands of
compounds to add/detract to palatability but also can affect
the health of the animal." Kemin demonstrated the effects by
adding a functional ingredient to a palatant and studying the
response through nutrigenomics.
Nutrigenomics is the study of how particular nutrients
effect the expression of genes in the DNA of a living animal.
Kemin looked at linking diet with gene expression via a trace
mineral nutrigenomics experiment, a non-invasive study with
Beagles examining the effects on gene expression in white blood
cells after supplementation with one of the company's products,
KemTrace Zinc.
The immune response effects included:
- Increased toll-like receptor expression. These proteins
on the surface of immune cells are critical in recognizing
substances foreign to the body and form the first line of
defense against bacterial invasion;
- Increased interferon-g receptor expression. Interferon-g
is a major cytokine (signaling compound) secreted by a
variety of cells that is crucial to controlling infections
and tumor growth;
- Upregulated genes. Zinc supplementation upregulated genes
encoding structural proteins required for wound repair.
Adding dual functionality to palatants is driven by growing
petfood market sophistication (for example, health value) and
the need for manufacturers to find cost-effective formulations,
according to SPF. Because palatants are commonly used topically and are not
subject to drastic process conditions, they are ideal vectors
for sensitive compounds such as nutraceuticals or heat
sensitive chemicals, SPF says.
Also, technologies used to produce palatants can be applied
to create other compounds with functionality besides just
palatability. SPF is including this capability at an early
phase of product development and has developed innovative
technologies to add functionalities to the palatant. SPF offers
specific solutions answering precisely the needs of this
emerging segment-for example, a palatant for hypoallergenic
diets.