A new report shows retailer Walmart and Nestle, parent company of Nestle Purina, ranking among the top corporate sustainability leaders worldwide, according to GreenBiz.com. Based on a survey of "industry experts and professionals" by GlobeScan Inc. and SustainAbility Ltd., the report names 13 such leaders, with Unilever at the very top.

ADM Alliance Nutrition Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Archer Daniels Midland Company, will build a new feed premix plant in Effingham, Illinois, USA, with enhanced processes and controls to meet safety standards for petfood premixes and specialty blends. The new facility, expected to be fully operational in early 2014, will incorporate stainless steel conveyances and processing equipment, with automation enabling real-time tracking of every ingredient through bar coding and lot controlled numbering systems.  

GA Pet Food Partners, a super-premium dry petfood manufacturer, recently created the “Just Fresh Meat” concept, in which all of meat ingredients in the dry pet food are fresh. GA has invested in a patented “Just Fresh Meat” extrusion technology, which the company says means that there is no need for dry rendered meat and bone meals to be used in a complete, dry petfood.  

Petfood palatability product manufacturer AFB International was awarded the 2011 Experience Award in the Customer Experience category by research agency Integron. AFB says the award, given at a March 15 awards ceremony in Rotterdam, Netherlands, recognizes its consistent dedication to customer satisfaction.  

  The 2012 Purchasing and Ingredient Suppliers Conference, an annual two-day event of the American Feed Industry Association, was held March 14-16, in Orlando, Florida, USA, where 553 individuals working within the livestock feed and petfood industries learned about the latest issues and events. Those in the animal feed industry who attended the conference heard market analyses and speakers on current topics such as barcoding, packaging, China’s impact on agriculture production, regulatory requirements and more.  

J. Rettenmaier & Sohne will host a fiber seminar for the needs of petfood and pet treat manufacturers at its headquarters in Rosenberg, Germany, on May 16. The company will feature industry experts and petfood specialists sharing knowledge on the latest trials in pet nutrition and new EU labelling practice for petfoods.

Tufts University's most-recent lecture in its weekly series featured Dr. Lisa Freeman, a professor from the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, presenting and discussing her research on companion animal nutrition. The lecture, part of the "A Taste of Tufts: A Sampling of Faculty Research" series, focused on exposing pet nutrition myths and educating pet owners on how to select an optimal diet for their pet.    

Two sources -- the US Department of Agriculture and the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) -- are predicting a record corn harvest for the US this year, according to WattAgnet.com. FAPRI, a think tank based at the University of Missouri, puts the crop number at 13.916 billion bushels, reports a Reuters article, a 6% increase over the previous record set in 2009 (and based on the second largest plantings since World War II).

An important petfood ingredient, L-carnitine, may provide many benefits to pets that consume it as part of a regular diet, a recent article says. Dr. Johhny Lopez, who holds a Master's degree in animal science and a PhD in monogastric nutrition, says that L-carnitine aids in transporting fatty acids inside the pet's body to the cell's mitochondria, or "furnace," where they are converted into extra energy for the pet's body to use in breathing, eating, resting, metabolism and activity.