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Who really formulates pet food?

Actually…it’s ‘what’ really formulates pet food?

Actually…it’s ‘what’ really formulates pet food?

Pet owners are given the impression the best pet foods are formulated by nutritionists. We’re led to believe some specially trained scientist working in a secret kitchen labors over each ingredient, carefully calculating the nutrients to make that ‘complete and balanced’ pet food. We’re led to believe if a manufacturer doesn’t have a nutritionist on staff, the pet food might be formulated poorly.

The truth is:

Pet food manufacturers use software to develop their recipes. While some might give you the impression a scientist labored in a special kitchen to get all the nutrients in a pet food just right…the truth is pet food recipes are developed by computer software programs.

Cats and dogs have specific nutritional needs. Not only does a pet food need to provide protein, they need to provide the pet specific levels of calcium and phosphorus – and make sure the calcium/phosphorus ratio is correct. Cats and dogs need specific levels of many other nutrients too, such as different vitamins and minerals.

Each food ingredient in a pet food provides different levels of different nutrients. The USDA provides a tremendous tool, FoodData Central where anyone can research the nutrient levels of a food ingredient. As example, ground beef.

From the USDA data, we see that 100 grams of raw ground beef contains (in part) 17.44 grams of protein and 17 milligrams of calcium.

If you were making a pet food, and needing to meet a long list of nutrient levels, you would add all the nutrient levels of each food ingredient of the pet food together…making sure that each minimum is met and that no maximum is exceeded. And then there is the consideration of how the food ingredient is prepared; ground beef raw is nutritionally different than ground beef cooked. Fresh cooked broccoli is nutritionally different than frozen cooked broccoli.

Needless to say, it can get complicated very quickly. And that’s where software programs come into the picture. Pet food formulation software programs use the data from the USDA (and other sources for feed grade ingredients), add them together and compare totals to the nutritional requirements of a cat or dog.

Dr. Barbara Royal/Royal Animal Health University offers pet owners (for home prepared pet food) and manufacturers (for commercial pet food) a software program that specializes in use of food ingredients (not feed ingredients).

Adifo provides pet food formulation software that assists manufacturers “in correctly analysing which raw materials you should buy when, where and at what price.”

AFOS markets their animal feed formulation software to nutritionists stating “powerful hybrid-cloud feed formulation software and dynamic cost optimization tool which helps you develop, manage, store, analyze, collaborate and exchange animal feed formulas.”

Opinion: there is nothing wrong with using a software program to formulate pet foods…in fact, software like these SHOULD be used as the task of balancing a pet food is not simple when considering all the potential nutrient variables (cooked, raw, frozen ingredients and human grade or feed ingredients). But, manufacturers should NOT mislead pet owners into believing anything other than a software program formulated the pet food. Just be transparent with pet owners…we CAN handle the truth.

Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,

Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author Buyer Beware, Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
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19 Comments

19 Comments

  1. Tina

    October 9, 2019 at 2:43 pm

    Very nice overview Susan, & thanks for the software formulation resources.

  2. Dianne & Pets

    October 9, 2019 at 3:41 pm

    Considering the decrease in quality and that nutrient levels of our raw ingredients has declined by varying percentages, I would wonder how often the values are updated. What worked 30 years ago, may no longer do so. Does this software also consider if the ingredients are even suitable for the animal? Does it take into consideration where a food item was grown? Length of storage also affects nutrient levels, is this taken into consideration? Before I trusted the tables, I would want to know all that. Not an easy process, for human or software. With proper filters and good coding, I would trust the program. But then, I might want to know who wrote the code. There are many programmers, but not that many are excellent.

    • Tina

      October 9, 2019 at 3:53 pm

      Is there a reliable alternative or more reliable alternative that provides the answers to those questions?

      • Dianne & Pets

        October 10, 2019 at 12:36 am

        I doubt it. The programmer can only work with the available data. The questions I raised are only just becoming known as questions that need to be asked.

    • T Allen

      October 9, 2019 at 8:59 pm

      Well said! We know that nutrient values have declined.

      Public release date: 1-Dec-2004
      [ Print Article | E-mail Article | Close Window ]

      Contact: Barbra Rodriguez
      brodriguez@mail.utexas.edu
      512-232-0675
      University of Texas at Austin
      Study suggests nutrient decline in garden crops over past 50 years
      AUSTIN, Texas – A recent study of 43 garden crops led by a University of Texas at Austin biochemist suggests that their nutrient value has declined in recent decades while farmers have been planting crops designed to improve other traits.

      The study was designed to investigate the effects of modern agricultural methods on the nutrient content of foods. The researchers chose garden crops, mostly vegetables, but also melons and strawberries, for which nutritional data were available from both 1950 and 1999 and compared them both individually and as a group.

      The study, based on U.S. Department of Agriculture data, will appear in the December issue of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. Its lead author is Dr. Donald Davis of the university’s Biochemical Institute in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. His coauthors are Drs. Melvin Epp and Hugh Riordan of the Bio-Communications Research Institute in Wichita, Kan., where Davis is a research consultant.

      According to Davis, establishing meaningful changes in nutrient content over a 50-year time interval was a significant challenge. The researchers had to compensate for variations in moisture content that affect nutrient measurements, and could not rule out the possibility that changes in analytical techniques may have affected results for some nutrients.

      “It is much more reliable to look at average changes in the group rather than in individual foods, due to uncertainties in the 1950 and 1999 values,” Davis said. “Considered as a group, we found that six out of 13 nutrients showed apparently reliable declines between 1950 and 1999.”

      These nutrients included protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin and ascorbic acid. The declines, which ranged from 6 percent for protein to 38 percent for riboflavin, raise significant questions about how modern agriculture practices are affecting food crops.

      “We conclude that the most likely explanation was changes in cultivated varieties used today compared to 50 years ago,” Davis said. “During those 50 years, there have been intensive efforts to breed new varieties that have greater yield, or resistance to pests, or adaptability to different climates. But the dominant effort is for higher yields. Emerging evidence suggests that when you select for yield, crops grow bigger and faster, but they don’t necessarily have the ability to make or uptake nutrients at the same, faster rate.”

      According to Davis, these results suggest a need for research into other important nutrients and foods that provide significant dietary calories, such as grains, legumes, meat, milk and eggs.

      “Perhaps more worrisome would be declines in nutrients we could not study because they were not reported in 1950 — magnesium, zinc, vitamin B-6, vitamin E and dietary fiber, not to mention phytochemicals,” Davis said. “I hope our paper will encourage additional studies in which old and new crop varieties are studied side-by-side and measured by modern methods.”

      ###

  3. Robin M

    October 9, 2019 at 6:31 pm

    More important in some ways are the results of the actual feeding trials of each recipe. They are very short ( as I recall, a mere few weeks when people tend to use a food/feed for YEARS) and they actually ALLOW a percentage of dogs in the feeding trials to DIE during the trial and still will approve the food recipe.

  4. Margarat

    October 9, 2019 at 7:12 pm

    The tone of the article is a little confusing. I would expect you to celebrate the release of this software program. Steve Brown has been working on this diligently and is always updating his information. To see his work packaged in a user-friendly format is terrific. I look forward to recommending this program as well as the ready-made and personalized formula options for folks who want to feed fresh but are worried about doing it right.

    • Susan Thixton

      October 9, 2019 at 8:11 pm

      I’m not sure what is confusing. I agree that the software is a tremendous tool – especially the one sold by Dr. Barbara Royal.

  5. Lynn Felici-Gallant

    October 9, 2019 at 7:46 pm

    Susan, this is very enlightening for those who are not aware of this process. Thank you. And thank you for Dr. Royal’s program. Curious as to your thoughts on the BalanceIt program available to consumers? Best, Lynn

  6. Chris

    October 9, 2019 at 8:05 pm

    Is there a consumer tool similar to this where we can make our own food at home and know we’re getting close to a balanced diet?

    • Susan Thixton

      October 9, 2019 at 8:12 pm

      Yes – the software above from Dr. Barbara Royal has a pet owner version.

  7. Dan Fleischman, Ph.D.

    October 10, 2019 at 3:55 pm

    Both my wife and I are retired food scientist who developed food products. My wife worked for a major pet food manufacturer in developing new and improved products. The company, working with an internal dedicated nutritionist, made products for all life stages in both short term AND long term feeding studies. Yes, computer programs were used to ensure that all nutritional needs were met, including ensuring all essential amino acid requirements and vitamin and mineral contents ensured a well balanced formula. All the data was updated annually to ensure that nutitional information was current. If you check the labels, you will see there is a guaranteed nutritional content, as all formulas were submitted to the FDA for final clearance. BTW, one of the most important aspects of developing cat foods was to make sure cats did not develop FUTD (Feline Urinary Tract Disease).
    My concern about this website is that people are not getting the full picture. Manufactured pet food, from reliable companies, do use humans, including nutritionists, to make nutritionally balanced, healthful products, and they are thoroughly tested through all life stages, and confirmed by the FDA. I’m don’t think a similar claim can be made for home made pet foods.
    Incidentally, neither of us works for owns stock in or communicate with people who are employed in the pet food industry or are connected with any government regulatory agency.

    • Susan Thixton

      October 10, 2019 at 4:05 pm

      You stated “as all formulas were submitted to the FDA for final clearance” and “Manufactured pet food, from reliable companies, do use humans, including nutritionists, to make nutritionally balanced, healthful products, and they are thoroughly tested through all life stages, and confirmed by the FDA.” What type of confirmation is received from FDA? To my knowledge FDA does not approve recipes/formulations – there is no legal requirement for formulas to seek FDA approval.

  8. Dan Fleischman, Ph.D.

    October 11, 2019 at 2:58 pm

    You are absolutely correct.
    Formulas are not submitted to the FDA. No manufacturer would want to have the formulas available to the public as they are proprietary. What is submitted is the analytical test results. The FDA checks that the claims follow correct protocol and the efficacy of the nutritional data.
    My issue with the write-up is the claim
    ” But, manufacturers should NOT mislead pet owners into believing anything other than a software program formulated the pet food.”
    This is at best misleading information not based on empirical evidence. Real people formulate these products. Computer programs are used as a tool to aid in product development, nutritional data management and test results just as computer programs were used to write this article and post it on line.

    • Susan Thixton

      October 11, 2019 at 3:05 pm

      I accept you take issue. It could be your issues are because we come from different perspectives. I support pet owners who are misled and lied to time and time again. I have a different perspective. It doesn’t mean I’m wrong or you are wrong, it means we have a different perspectives.

  9. Dan Fleischman, Ph.D.,

    October 11, 2019 at 3:45 pm

    Accepted that we have different perspectives. Regardless, the statement I referred to is incorrect. That is based on fact, not perspective.

    • Susan Thixton

      October 11, 2019 at 4:01 pm

      Not sure why you feel the need to continue the argument. The statement is not incorrect, software programs are used.

  10. Dan Fleischman, Ph.D.

    October 13, 2019 at 3:54 pm

    If only the last paragraph of the article agrees with the last comment that software programs are used. Unfortunately, the article states “But, manufacturers should NOT mislead pet owners into believing anything other than a software program formulated the pet food. Just be transparent with pet owners…we CAN handle the truth.” By stating that anything other than a software program formulated pet foods leaves out the human element. So, I urge that the final paragraph be clarified to show that a software program is a tool, not the sole method that is used to develop these products. To quote
    ‘just be transparent with pet owners… we CAN handle the truth.”

    • Susan Thixton

      October 13, 2019 at 4:17 pm

      Dr. Fleischman – the article ALSO states “Pet food manufacturers use software to develop their recipes. While some might give you the impression a scientist labored in a special kitchen to get all the nutrients in a pet food just right…the truth is pet food recipes are developed by computer software programs.” That is a truthful disclosure. Clearly you don’t like my perspective of the truth. FYI – I am not changing the post to suit your perspective.

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