EnWave Corporation announced that it has signed a commercial royalty-bearing license with Perdue Foods LLC following a successful research and development program utilizing EnWave's technology. The license grants Perdue the exclusive right to use the company's radiant energy vacuum (REV) dehydration technology to process pet food and pet treats in the United States of America and Canada. Perdue is to pay EnWave a quarterly royalty based on the sales of pet food and pet treats according to the terms of the license.
Perdue has issued a purchase order and deposit for the purchase of a small commercial REV machine to conduct product optimization and regional market trials. In order to retain exclusivity, Perdue is required to purchase a 100kW or larger REV machine from EnWave within a specified timeframe from receipt of the small commercial REV machine.
This license represents the second royalty-bearing agreement signed by EnWave with a major meat processing company, and it's first in the pet food market. EnWave is actively engaged in research and development with several other major meat processing companies that span Europe, North America, South America and Australasia.
EnWave’s REV is a dehydration technology for the food and biological material sectors. The company claims the technology’s benefits include being faster and cheaper compared to freeze drying with better end product quality than air drying or spray drying.
Dehydrated pet food trend
Premiumization of pet food is driving the pet specialty market’s continued growth, which sits at 5 percent year over year, said Maria Lange, business group director, pet care, Gfk, speaking at Petfood Forum 2016 on April 19.
Within pet specialty, dehydrated pet food has seen the most rapid growth in 2015, rising 72 percent. In terms of sales volume, Lange’s data showed this category jumped from US$15.2 million in 2014 to US$26 million in 2015.
