Dog and cat owners’ desire to see recognizable meat and vegetable ingredients in their pets’ foods has become an influential trend in wet pet food, said Jeroen Boensma, area sales manager at SELO Food Processing, during his presentation at Foro Mascotas 2018 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. This trend influences how pet food manufacturers process their products.
Traditionally, the meat in pet food was cut into cubes of relatively uniform size. Now, pet owners increasingly want the meat that appears to have been torn into shreds, Boensma said. Customers may perceive these irregular pieces as more natural or less processed.
To create meat pieces that appear to have been shredded, pet food manufacturers can use a broken-rope technique during processing, he said.
However, the irregular shreds aren’t are efficient to process as uniform chunks in a traditional steam tunnel. Although these irregular shreds may be less efficient for steam tunnel processing, the steam tunnels themselves have become more efficient. Newer steam tunnels use 20 to 30 percent less steam than older models, he said. That makes the steam tunnels both more environmentally sustainable and more economical to operate.
Along with shreds of meat, pet owners want to see other ingredients in their dog, cat and other pet foods.
“People like to see vegetables, not just an emulsion of meat,” said Boensma.
The trend towards recognizable ingredients in wet pet food means the finished products appear as mixture of different ingredients, as opposed to a pâté, essentially. As with meat shreds, irregular sized pieces of vegetable also tend to be more challenging to sterilize.
Tim Wall covers the dog, cat and other pet food industries as senior reporter for WATT Global Media. His work has appeared in Live Science, Discovery News, Scientific American, Honduras Weekly, Global Journalist and other outlets. He holds a journalism master's degree from the University of Missouri - Columbia and a bachelor's degree in biology.
Wall served in the Peace Corps in Honduras from 2005 to 2007, where he coordinated with the town government of Moroceli to organize a municipal trash collection system, taught environmental science, translated for medical brigades and facilitated sustainable agriculture, along with other projects.
Contact Wall via https://www.wattglobalmedia.com/contact-us/
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