Due to advances in pet food extrusion, consumers around the world are becoming more specific about what they want. Over the past many years, terms such as natural and organic have become increasingly common among pet food buyers.
However, pet food manufacturers are also expanding their operations and dabbling excessively in the high-meat pet food segment.
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What is a high-meat pet food?
We define a high-meat pet food as any kind of pet food that contains more than 30% fresh meat. This is more or less a combination of plant-based proteins and lower-end animal proteins and regular meat.
Since the advent of the buzzword, more and more pet foods now rely on meat content to some degree. The overall trend stems from the fact that consumers now increasingly desire higher digestibility.
The Challenge
However, the demand for high-quality pet food also poses a number of challenges.
Ingredients are difficult to process. The regular moisture and fat in raw animal food ingredients make it difficult to reach the correct cooking temperature in the extruder barrel. This is primarily because these ingredients tend to offset friction.
In addition, there are significant differences between the animal components of different raw materials. This makes consistent processing very difficult. That's why pet food machine manufacturers also need to seek the help of inspection programs to account for highly variable ingredients.
Need for higher throughput rates
In addition, high-meat pet foods also require two-screw extruders rather than a single screw. These two screws offer significant advantages over the latter, and improve kneading and blending capabilities. The higher demand for high-meat products also leads to an increased need for higher throughput while adhering to the same footprint and machine size.
At the same time, some high meat contents also require lower throughput compared to dry grains; therefore, extruder manufacturers are now required to develop extrusion methods that can guarantee higher overall production volumes without compromising the physical consistency of the food.
Jinan Qunlong Machinery Co., Ltd. is a pioneer in advanced extruder processing technology. We offer a wide range of extrusion equipment, including turnkey extrusion equipment and tin-screw extruders. You can contact us for more information on extruder-related products and services.
