Wet Pet Food Production
Wet pet food production may include ingredients like meats (in the form of fresh meat or animal by-products, which are not used for human consumption), grains, vegetables, fats, vitamins, and minerals. The production process includes grinding, blending, cooking and packaging and prioritizes nutritional balance, safety, and shelf stability in compliance with regulatory standards.
1. Grinding
Meats or animal by-products arrive at the factory in a fresh or frozen state. They may be chopped and added to the recipe mix directly or finely minced as done by Grinders.
Natec Network Grinders
2. Blending
The prepared meats are mixed with dry and liquid ingredients such as cereals, oils and fats, vitamins, minerals, pasta, grains, or vegetables and water to create a consistent, homogenous blend that meets the required nutritional profile. This step can be performed using a Blender Cell.
Natec Network Blending Cell
3. Cooking & Sterilization
The mixture needs to undergo a precise cooking process, carefully controlling temperature and cooking duration to destroy pathogens, optimize taste, and to preserve the nutritional content of the food. For wet pet foods, canning and retorting is common. The mixed ingredients are sealed in cans, pouches, or trays and then cooked at specific temperatures in a heat and steam chamber (autoclave) to ensure the contents remain sterile and shelf-stable. This process requires a huge amount of time, space and energy and includes manual labor.
Natec Network offers a continuous and automated pet food sterilization solution to achieve the shortest possible processing time eliminating the space and energy requirements for autoclaves.
More About No Autoclave Sterilisation
4. Cooling & Packaging
After cooking products are cooled, labelled and packed into boxes.
Dry Pet Food Production
The ingredients used for dry pet food production commonly come in dry form, such as cereals, grains, vegetables and animal by-products in meal form, which provide a concentrated source of protein and minerals. Further ingredients include oils, fats and vitamins.
Natec Network offers the latest meat rendering technology transforming animal by-products into valuable fats and protein meals, which are essential for the production of dry pet food.
Natec Network RotaTherm
