January 30, 2024 Feed Design Lab
Last June 2023 we had a follow up from other projects at FDL in a workshop “Towards 100% circular feed”. In the discussion we concluded that petfood and wet co-products are a good combination:
- Technological: a lot of water added in the extrusion process can be replaced by moisture in wet co-products in petfood
- Sustainability: great option to improve. Why buying dried co-products and add water later on to extrude, if you can use the wet co-product as well?
- Availability: the volume of wet coproducts is increasing
At FDL we then started preparing a Workshop: discussing with our partners. To be sure the audience is known with the production of extruded petfood at the workshop, we successfully performed a training “How is petfood produced” on November 21. And we already started preparing for the workshop by testing in our pilot plant.
The program of the day started with Sustainability: finding that using LCA ( Life Cycle Assessment) data for petfood is not as easy to do compared to feed for livestock. The feed companies have GFLI available and are using this in their calculation of feeds. Lara Nobel presented explained about GFLI and differences with other companies. Practical information for starting with LCA for your company with an examples for fish was shared.
Next the results of experiments in our pilot plant were presented by Jos Dorssers. First we tested with a basic dog recipe and many co-products how much we could include in a kibble. With trial and error we gained knowledge on the possibilities and technological settings during production. In the second phase we tested with a calculated recipe and selected co-products for realistic kibbles. We gained information and made samples to be prepared for demonstrating the use of two wet co-products in dog food in the workshop: hydrolysed salmon protein and liquid wheat starch.
During lunch, 3 groups were asked to look at the demonstration in the pilot plant and checking the co-products from suppliers in the small stands.
Next was Sonja Floto-Stammen presenting on developments of use of insects in petfood. That wet co-products are important in the feed for insects as well, was presented by Geert Poels. He presented about the BSFL product after harvest, still wet, which can be used in petfood.
All this information made the group of more than 40 participants happy to discuss openly about the possibilities of using co-products in petfood to increase circularity. About regional ingredients for petfood, the quality of the nutrients from co-products after processing, producing reliable date to convince retailers that co-products are beneficial. Think about insects (health claims), circularity and labelling.
We closed the workshop around 4 o’clock with a wrap-up and enjoyed the networking with drinks.
