Debbie Phillips-DonaldsonDebbie Phillips-Donaldson is editor-in-chief of Petfood Industry magazine and Petfood Forum.From the Author - Page 67Market Trends and ReportsAre current petfood trends healthy or sustainable?It's a business axiom that to succeed, you have to meet customers' needs. But when it comes to feeding pets, is that always true?Pet Food MarketDelay in petfood safety rules leads to FDA hand slapIf a recent US federal court ruling has any impact, we might soon, finally, see new petfood preventive controls safety regulations under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). In the ruling, issued April 22, the court said the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) must comply with a schedule set forth by Congress under FSMA to issue new regulations in seven key areas, including risk-based preventive controls.Pet Food MarketNutritional sustainability offers opportunities for petfoodPetfood is unique in many ways. As an industry, it straddles the consumer packaged goods world as well as the feed industry from which it sprang. From a regulatory perspective, its products and processes do not fall under regulations for human foods but often do not quite fit within feed regulations, due to the fact that humans often directly handle petfood.Pet Food MarketPetfood Forum highlights positive numbers for petfood market and its futureAmong 2,000 pet owners surveyed online in March, 72% agree that their pets have a positive impact on their physical health, and 79% agree their pets have a positive impact on their mental health, according to Packaged Facts. Out of many interesting and impressive numbers emanating from Petfood Forum last week, those data, delivered by David Sprinkle, publisher and research director for Packaged Facts, stood out.Pet Food MarketPetfood safety: industry innovates with patented process, proof of extrusion kill stepThe American Veterinary Medical Association caused quite a stir last year when it issued a policy discouraging raw petfood diets. Petfood companies in that segment naturally protested, as did plenty of consumers.Pet Food MarketPet ownership benefits confirmed by researchMost of us who work in the petfood industry think of it not only as our vocation but also our passion; we all own and love pets and genuinely care about their well-being. So we know first-hand the benefits that sharing a home (or office) with a pet can bring.ProductionMycotoxins in petfood: there’s an app for thatSalmonella has been receiving a lot of attention within our industry for the last few years. That makes some sense, because the US Food and Drug Administration's zero tolerance for the bacteria since the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act in January 2011 has ratcheted up the number of petfood recalls, even though in nearly all of the cases where Salmonella was found in the environment, no products were contaminated.Pet Food MarketWhat do you need to know about petfood ingredients?Do you have questions about retaining the nutritional viability of certain ingredients during processing? Are you struggling to obtain a steady, sufficient supply of a key component of your latest formulation? Have you hit a roadblock in finding the latest novel protein or other new ingredient to expand your line?Pet Food MarketTackling pet obesity: will calorie statements on petfood labels help?When the full membership of the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) voted in January to adopt a regulation that requires calorie-content statements on all cat food and dog food labels, it ended an eight-year-long debate that was sometimes contentious. (If you have ever doubted that rule-making bodies take a long time to reach final decisions, here's yet another piece of proof.)Pet Food MarketWhich pet ownership survey should you believe?Every two years, the American Pet Products Association releases its APPA National Pet Owners Survey, usually during or just after its Global Pet Expotrade show. So we're in luck, because the 2013-2014 survey results just came out, showing US pet ownership at an all-time high of 68% of all US households in 2012.Pet Food MarketWill 2013 be another bad year for mycotoxins in petfood?With the news last week that a scientist is studying Salmonella in space and, more importantly, gleaning important insights from the study, we can hope that this pathogen might become easier to control in petfood plants and everywhere else it shows up. (Because, after all, it's in the environment nearly everywhere.) That might help decrease the number of petfood recalls related to Salmonella each year.Market Trends and ReportsGiving pets (and their owners) a helping handWhile the petfood and pet care industries have continued to chug along despite the economy, still sluggish in many parts of the world, there's no doubt that some pet owners have been hit hard by loss of jobs, wages or homes. In the US, at least 5 million pets enter animal shelters each year for a variety of reasons; it's difficult to find up-to-date data on how many are surrendered due to owners' inability to afford petfood or care.Previous PagePage 67 of 83Next Page
