Pet food testing
When talking about food testing, the immediate thought is the testing of food for human consumption. This makes sense – we all need to eat multiple times a day, and need to trust that our food is hygienically sourced and prepared.
However, pet food testing is also an essential application of testing equipment. With over 20 million pet cats and dogs estimated to be in the UK, the impacts of lax regulation in pet food would not be small.
Why does pet food need testing?
It’s understandable to think that pet food wouldn’t need much in the way of testing. Dogs frequently drink from muddy puddles of rainwater and can comfortably eat raw meat. Likewise, cats are known to hunt for animals like rats, birds, and mice to consume.
Our pets hardy digestive tracts might be forgiving, but they are not invulnerable to harmful chemicals or by-products that might find their way into food. This is not just to protect the animals themselves, but also us, the humans who own and interact with them intimately on a daily basis.
Beside the material risk to human and animal health, it is also necessary to protect the health of our beloved companions. Animals serve a variety of purposes, from domestic companionship, therapy, and guidance for the visually impaired, to providing mounts for police and searching for survivors of disasters.
Protecting the health and wellbeing of the animals that work with us is therefore imperative. Many pets need certain levels of oils, fats, and proteins to ensure they stay healthy and do not develop health problems later down the line.
Dry dog food has come under particular fire in popular culture in recent years for their grain contents, leading many to believe that certain foods serve as nothing more than padding for their dog’s diet. Dog food testing can deliver the answers in this regard.
What should you test for?
Using accurate, lab-quality testing equipment will yield important information about the chemical and dietary makeup of pet food. There are some key indicators of quality that can be tested for:
Protein
Protein is essential for all pets, particularly animals like dogs and cats that need essential amino acids to live. The actual amount needed will differ depending on the animal in question, but pet foods aimed at certain sizes and breeds of dogs, for instance, will need to reflect this. Correlating the protein content to the dry content of the food (the amount that is not taken up by water) typically reveals the true protein content.
Fats and Oils
Understanding the level of fat and oil in animal food is essential, as this not only has implications for the animals’ diets, but also affects the shelf life of the product. Lipids being exposed to air and moisture will affect the food’s rancidity, dictating how long the product will safely keep.
Moisture
The proportion of water in pet food affects the available ‘room’ left for nutritional value. Subtracting the moisture from pet food affects the levels of carbohydrates and protein that is truly left behind. Reading from the label on the packaging will not always fully convey this, which is why moisture content testing is vital.
Fibre
Fibre is as important for pets as it is for humans, and it ultimately serves the same purpose. Fibre content affects how digestible the food is, and helps ensure that pets will not be faced with constipation when trying to pass what they’ve eaten.
Mycotoxins
Mycotoxins are produced naturally by various strains of fungi. They are dangerous to animals and humans alike, and can enter the food chain by crops infected with moulds being harvested and processed for food purposes.
Who regulates pet food?
In the UK, the Food Standards Agency is responsible for overseeing animal feed and pet food and the regulations controlling their production. This covers factors such as the requirement to declare certain ingredients on packaging through to bacteriological sampling and condition of animals used to create food.
For manufacturers that use by-products from other animals to create pet food, approval from the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) is also required. Additionally, some feed businesses may need approval from their local authority’s Trading Standards office. This includes makers of pet foods, complete or complementary, with or without additives.
The Food Standards Agency also enforce restrictions of the marketing of pet food. Some claims, for instance, are restricted in their usage in marketing, such as ‘regulation of glucose supply and support of skin function in dermatosis’.
In America, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversees pet food manufacture and regulation. Their enforces are much the same as the Food Standards Agency, ensuring that ingredients are safe, appropriate, and truthfully labelled on packaging.
Pet food testing equipment
There is a range of testing equipment that can closely examine pet foods and ensure they’re safe and in order.
The Perten DA 7250 can test pet foods for protein, moisture, oil, fat – all the essential components that need to be measured to determine the overall quality of pet food. The DA 7250 works rapidly to give results in as little as six seconds. It employs near-infrared spectroscopy to analyse food purely through imaging, with no contact necessary.
As a standalone piece of equipment, it’s perfect for at-line use when fast, accurate results are needed.
To check for the presence of mycotoxins, the Charm EZ-M Reader is a reliable and repeatable method of testing. The machine incubates lateral flow test strips for their optimal time and reads them automatically for simple, exportable data that can help eliminate toxins from the food chain of pets.
Testing food with Calibre Control
Don’t leave food safety to chance. Calibre Control are fuelled by a passion to help food and ingredient producers establish the very best quality in their work. We supply top-range equipment and advice for both human and pet food testing.
To learn more about how we can help you, please get in touch today.