In a recent blog post, we explored some of the new trends in pet food. We also discussed a bit of how pet food manufacturers can adapt to these trends. In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at specific equipment changes pet food processors can make to increase their ROI in 2023, and into the future.
What’s Changing in Pet Food?
The bond between pets and pet owners has become stronger than ever. More pet owners consider their pets to be family members, and want the very best for them. This close connection means that pet owners are more concerned about what is in their pets’ food.
In some cases, pet owners want their pets’ diet to mirror their own, such as a vegan diet or one made from sustainable ingredients. In other cases, pet owners are looking for ingredients that mimic a canine’s or feline’s diet in the wild, such as grain-free, meat-based ingredients.
Regardless, more and more pet owners are looking for ingredients that are better for their pets, and better for the planet. A few pet food processing equipment changes can help processors turn these trends into opportunities and increase ROI in 2023.
Meeting Pet Food Processing’s Demands for the New Age
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Pet Food Processing Equipment Changes to Increase ROI in 2023
Adjustable Control Systems
As buyer’s preferences change, your ingredients may need to change as well. This might mean changing suppliers to adhere to a GMO-free recipe, focusing on meat proteins, or using freeze-dried pieces in your formula. There are many changes you might incorporate to make your pet food meet pet owners’ expectations and nourish pets.
If your control system can’t quickly adjust for these changes, it will be difficult and time-consuming to make changes. If your control system uses proprietary programming language, or requires the help of the supplier to make changes, you won’t be innovating very quickly. Your competitors may be meeting customers’ changing demands and adding up sales, while you’re stuck with the same old dry kibble.
As you’re considering pet food processing equipment changes, upgrades or new equipment in 2023, consider an adjustable control system. APEC’s BatchBox control system gives you complete control over mixers, metered liquids, inventory, and formula management. There’s no proprietary programming language, so it’s easy to make changes. You can test out new formulas using the BatchBox’s intuitive interface, without disrupting your factory’s workflow.
Upgraded Coatings
Coatings play a key role in nutrition and palatability for many pet foods. Liquid ingredients are also important, as the moisture content of pet food can affect how healthy it is for pets, and also how easy (or not) it is to process. Adding the right amount of moisture, as well as fats, oils, and palatants, can be a challenge with traditional coating methods. Spray nozzles can easily become clogged if the conditions change even slightly for the coating. In many cases, spray nozzles will simply become clogged over time, requiring regular cleaning and maintenance.
Improving pet food coatings can help you keep up with new trends in pet food, and improving your coating system can help prevent costly maintenance and cleaning. The Mistcoater system bypasses the need for spray nozzles completely. This completely enclosed system uses a rotating disk to turn coatings into a fine mist. The pet food then drops through the enclosure and through the mist, receiving an even, uniform coating.
Improved Mixing
Working with ingredients with higher meat content, more moisture or more nutrients may affect the functionality of your mixer. When the mix becomes thicker or more viscous, the mixer may need to work harder, and it might not be as effective. Optimizing your mixer in accordance with your ingredients can help improve processing time, and improve product quality. If you find that your mixer isn’t performing as well as it should be or has been, and your ingredient mix has changed, changing your mixer might be an important pet food processing equipment change to increase ROI in 2023.
Automated Lot Tracking
Capitalizing on new pet food trends may mean using a wider variety of ingredients or new formulas. For example, you might add freeze-dried pieces to your mix to take advantage of the “kibble-plus” trend. Or, this might mean adding more raw ingredients as well as “active” ingredients like enzymes. With additional ingredients, it may be more difficult to properly track and trace them. This might also introduce more contamination hazards, especially when using raw ingredients.
In this case, automated lot tracking will help to make tracking and tracing much easier. This can also help to avoid costly recalls, and improve overall product quality. An automated tracking system uses RFID technology to scan barcodes on ingredients and finished products, and track all items through receiving, processing, delivery and sale.
These pet food processing equipment changes can help increase ROI in 2023, but they can also help reduce maintenance, and improve product quality. As we move forward into 2023, consider how new trends might impact your product mix, and also consider how a new product mix might impact your pet food processing equipment. If you’re interested in making equipment upgrades for the future, contact us. Our experts will design and manufacture optimal equipment to meet your goals.
