Adapted from a press release.
Wilbur-Ellis Nutrition and Bond Pet Foods have announced a partnership to develop tailored ingredients for pet food applications. The collaboration is the first-of-its-kind for Wilbur-Ellis Nutrition and Bond's second strategic partnership with a global pet food industry player.
"Our partnership with Bond expands our capabilities and opens up new ways to deliver sustainable, innovative ingredients to pet food manufacturers around the world," said Matt Fanta, president of Wilbur-Ellis Nutrition. "We see tremendous opportunity with Bond's technology to expand what's possible with pet nutrition and support our pursuit of a more responsible pet food future."
Animal-derived ingredients are the mainstay of dog and cat diets. While the demand for these ingredients continues to grow, meat production to satisfy this demand can have an oversized impact on the environment. As noted in the scientific journal PLUS One, if U.S. pets were their own country, they would be the 5th largest meat consumers in the world, and responsible for up to 30% of associated carbon emissions.
Crafting a sustainable pet food future
Bond approaches production of these foundational pet food ingredients differently, employing a yeast-based precision fermentation process that has been around for more than half a century to make ingredients such as vitamin B12, flavors like vanilla, and enzymes for cheese manufacturing, but has creatively reassembled the process to more efficiently produce proteins like chicken, turkey and fish without the animal. Its "brewing" platform also has the ability to enhance the finished products' nutritional and functional performance, compared with conventional options available today.
"As the petfood industry focuses more on sustainable solutions, precision fermentation is an increasingly attractive tool to produce proteins, flavors, and blends that perform," said Nick Braden, vice president of Wilbur-Ellis Pet Nutrition. "This collaboration with Bond, and their deep fermentation expertise, will allow us to further advance our ingredient portfolio."
Rich Kelleman, CEO and founder of Bond Pet Foods, who will speak at next week's Petfood Forum event in Kansas City on creating a more sustainable pet food future, said he is thrilled to partner with Wilbur-Ellis Nutrition.
"For more than 100 years, they have been known for high-quality ingredients and have a genuine commitment to innovation in the pet nutrition space," said Kelleman. "We look forward to developing a new class of products through this JDA program that will provide pet food manufacturers with more sustainable, functional formulary alternatives."
