The freeze-dried pet food segment continues to attract entrepreneurs and established manufacturers alike, but scaling from small-batch production to commercial operations requires careful planning and investment.
During a recent Ask the Pet Food Pro, Jerad Ducklow, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Parker Freeze Dry, and Sean Jones, founder of Foodynamics and now director of sales for Glacial Freeze Dry, shared best practices to scale a freeze-dried pet food business from small-batch production to a full-scale operation.
1. What's the real investment required beyond the freeze dryer itself?
The leap from tabletop units to commercial equipment involves far more than just upgrading the dryer. Tabletop units typically cost $3,000 to $5,000, while commercial freeze dryers range from $75,000 to over $1 million depending on capacity, noted Ducklow.
"It's critical to understand that it's not only an investment in the dryer, but there's a significant amount of ancillary requirements to get production in that space up and running, whether it's renting a facility, buying additional equipment, hiring people," said Ducklow.
Jones learned this lesson firsthand. His company was recently acquired by Glacial Freeze Dry he said partly due to the capital requirements for scaling. "One of the things that keeps me up at night -- it sounds silly -- is dishwashing or pan washing,” he said. “We're getting ready to wash thousands of pans a day – do we have the geographic footprint to be able to accommodate all that?"
The ancillary equipment extends beyond processing to include forklifts, freezers, dicers, and packaging systems. Jones noted his company consistently underestimated space requirements. "Within 6 months, we've always scaled beyond the geographic requirements that we had,” he said.
2. How does freeze drying ensure food safety without traditional kill steps?
Food safety remains one of the most complex challenges in freeze-dried pet food production, as the process doesn't rely on heat-based kill steps that destroy pathogens.
"Most kill steps include heat, and freeze drying -- the process itself -- is trying to avoid heat as much as possible and still dry the product," Ducklow explained. While some manufacturers add heat earlier in the process with varying degrees of success, this approach can compromise the nutritional benefits that make freeze drying attractive.
Water activity measurement, rather than simple weight-based moisture testing, serves as the industry standard for determining shelf stability. "There's certain water activity measures that would indicate that it's shelf-stable, as pathogens cannot grow in that environment," Jones said.
Many processors turn to complementary safety measures. High-pressure thermal processing (HPTP) can serve as a pre-freeze-dry kill step, though Jones noted potential limitations. "From a food safety aspect, you have to think about the process,” he explained. “They put the materials through HPTP, put it in a plastic bag, and it's delivered to us. What is the first thing we do when it gets here? We cut open that plastic bag and expose it to whatever is in our facility."
3. Are preservatives and antioxidants necessary in freeze-dried products?
The freeze-drying process itself serves as an effective preservation method, often eliminating the need for additional preservatives.
"There’s probably no reason to add any type of preservative to a freeze-dried product," Jones said. Most pet food products in this category carry 18-month expiration dates using standard packaging.
For complete and balanced diets, Jones advocates formulating with whole food ingredients rather than relying on synthetic additions. "I really believe the only reason you add synthetic vitamins is because the actual food ingredients themselves weren't enough to meet the minimum AAFCO standard," he said.
However, desiccants remain common in retail packaging as an additional safeguard, particularly for products not vacuum-sealed. While not strictly necessary, they provide extra protection against oxidation and potential package damage during distribution noted the speakers.
4. What equipment considerations are needed for commercial operations?
The transition from tabletop to commercial equipment involves more than capacity scaling. Commercial freeze dryers offer recipe customization capabilities that dramatically improve efficiency and product consistency.
"When you get to the commercial industrial unit, you've got the ability to do specific recipe profile programming," Ducklow said. This customization can reduce cycle times significantly. Jones reported that his commercial unit can freeze-dry many products twice as fast as tabletop units.
Reliability becomes critical at commercial scale. Jones operated 30 tabletop units simultaneously and found that "there probably wasn't one single time that a third of the machines were not running the way they should be."
Commercial units are designed for continuous operation. "These units are industrial, commercial – and designed to run 360-plus days a year," Ducklow noted. Some facilities operate three shifts, where even reducing cycle time by a couple of hours can add two or three additional runs per month.
5. Is there still room for smaller companies as large corporations enter the space?
Despite major pet food companies acquiring freeze-dried brands and entering the category, these industry experts see continued opportunities for smaller manufacturers.
"The interesting and fun part about the pet industry is that it allows all of these groups to try something, to create a new products, get successful and grow," Ducklow said.
Jones views increased competition as beneficial for the entire category. "I always say the competition, or the growth of the freeze-dried industry, is good for everybody,” he said. “The more people that understand the benefits of feeding a freeze-dried product, the better.”
Consumer education will drive category growth, noted the speakers. A key advantage for smaller companies lies in their ability to maintain direct relationships with customers and tell their sourcing story, said Jones.
To see the entire episode of Ask the Pet Food Pro on-demand, click here.
