The Pandemic Increases Demand for Healthy Pet Foods

The pandemic has driven pet owners to look for ingredients with health promoting effects, as more people take time to consider what they are feeding to their beloved pet. Here Karel Thurman, Commercial Director at BENEO Animal Nutrition, discusses how pet food producers can meet these changing demands using functional rice ingredients.

Healthy nutrition for pets is big business

In 2019, the pet food market worldwide stood at €73 billion, and it is predicted to reach €103 billion by 20271. This expected global pet food market growth is due, in part, to an increasing demand from animal owners for more natural and premium products which is a direct reflection of what is happening in human nutrition. It is no surprise, following a global pandemic that there has been an increased interest from pet parents regarding healthy nutrition.
In fact, the relationship between animal and human nutrition trends is a strong one. According to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA): “Trends in companion animal nutrition often mirror trends in human nutrition, reflecting the desire of pet owners to feed them diets they consider healthy and beneficial for the well-being of their pets”. Governments are also increasingly encouraging the usage of natural, healthy, and safe ingredients in pet food products and demanding more label transparency when selling such products.

Label transparency increases

A pre-pandemic BENEO survey on attitudes towards pet foods in the US, UK, Brazil, Germany and China found that almost three-quarters of dog owners (73%) and 66% of cat owners looked at the ingredients list when purchasing a new pet food product. Compare this to the 51% of consumers who said that they usually read the ingredients list when shopping for a new food product, and it clearly shows the significant importance owners placed – even before COVID-19 – on positive nutrition for their pets. The survey findings also highlighted that three quarters of pet owners were looking for feed products that contained less, or no, ingredients they disliked, such as artificial colours and flavourings, and actively avoided products with fillers, additives, or chemical ingredients. It is no wonder, therefore, that demand for all natural, recognisable ingredients is high and this is driving a shift in pet food production.

Digestive health concerns

Digestive wellness is an area of increasing concern for pet owners and figures show that 81% of European cat and dog food buyers believe that actively looking after their pets’ digestive health is essential for their overall health2 and natural, easy to digest ingredients are therefore a key purchasing decision driver for pet owners3. Similar to humans, many cats and dogs can suffer with a range of gastrointestinal issues. There can be many causes for these issues, including parasites, viruses, bacterial infections, pancreatitis or simply eating something they should not. For pets with symptoms only present when on certain diets, gastrointestinal problems can also be due to a food allergy or an intolerance.

Food allergies occur when the animal immune system abnormally reacts to a certain food protein and mounts an immune response against this allergen, leading to skin and/or gastrointestinal disorders4. There is no easy test to identify food allergy triggers, so dietary elimination trials are recommended by vets. With unique protein and carbohydrate sources, limited-ingredient diets reduce the number of potential triggering allergens in the end product.

In general, recognisable ingredient lists, are of key interest for pet owners if they are watching out for potentially hazardous ingredients for their pets. Add to this the increased concern for digestive well-being and food allergies, and it’s no surprise that more manufacturers are increasingly looking into clean label, hypoallergenic and highly digestible solutions using rice ingredients.

Meeting label transparency demands using rice ingredients

Pet owners want the ingredients in their pet’s food to be natural and healthy, but also understandable and recognisable to them. This creates challenges for manufacturers who use fillers or artificial colours and flavourings in their products, as these are increasingly being actively avoided by many pet owners.

One of the biggest challenges for manufacturers is cleaning up the label on wet pet foods to cater for this growing trend as, traditionally, these contain guar, cassia or xanthan hydrocolloids, carrageenan or locust beans. These additives have been used for many years as a cost-effective way to create the appropriate viscosity in the different types of wet pet food. However, with a rise in demand for natural and recognisable ingredients on-pack, more and more manufacturers are looking to replace these gums with clean label ingredients such as rice starches.

When it comes to veterinary and premium wet pet food products, rice starch offers an ideal replacement for modified starches. This is due to the fact that it is a highly digestible ingredient that is recognised as natural by consumers. It also performs exceptionally well from a technical perspective. In trials carried out by BENEO, results have shown that by adding just 3% of BENEO’s native waxy rice starch to a recipe, a similar viscosity is achieved in wet pet food gravies as those containing traditional gums, whilst also catering for clean label demand.

Rice starch allows manufacturers to create a wide range of different textures, from soft gravies to firm jelly-like textures and due to the branched structure of the amylose in rice, which binds water much better than other starches, it also has excellent stability during shelf life and temperature fluctuations (offering freeze-thaw stability). BENEO has even developed a functional native rice starch that is a clean label texturiser and that can withstand harsher pH, temperature or shear conditions.

Although rice starch is ideal for use in wet pet foods, it can also be used as a technological aid to optimise the extrusion behaviour in extruded pet snacks and treats, as well as in baked products. With its high set temperature, the inclusion of rice starch improves the porosity and surface of extruded and baked snacks, allowing for a good level of crispiness and crunchiness in the final product. Additionally, rice starch has a neutral taste and colour, with good palatability, so that it won’t influence negatively the organoleptic profile of the pet food product.

Overcoming allergies and digestive issues using rice protein

BENEO’s research3 has shown that over 60% of cat and dog owners are ‘very or somewhat concerned’ about food allergies, with 2 in every 5 respondents also saying that using no allergens makes food seem a lot healthier. This highlights that concern about food allergies applies to most pet owners, meaning that pet food that supports limited-ingredient and hypoallergenic diets hold mass appeal. As a hypoallergenic, clean label ingredient that is free from the most frequent food allergens, rice protein is well suited for use in such diets. Where high digestibility is required, rice protein is also ideal, as it has shown an apparent digestibility of 87% in dogs5, making it not only attractive for pets with allergies, but also for sensitive pets such as puppies and older animals.

BENEO’s rice protein is produced in alkaline conditions, which leads to significantly better digestibility than other rice proteins that have been isolated using an acidic treatment6. This makes it an ideal ingredient for not only promoting digestive stability, but for use in limited-ingredient diets, as it is a high quality and concentrated protein with a protein content of >80%. It is also produced in Europe from non-GMO raw materials sources. BENEO’s rice protein has a well-balanced essential amino acids (EAA) profile, delivering what is required to promote long-term pet health. Furthermore, it is a good source of the EAA methionine/cysteine and phenylalanine/tyrosine that are involved in some major metabolic processes, as well as supporting a pet’s normal growth.

In conclusion, consumers across the globe are increasingly looking for health boosting products following the pandemic and the same approach is being adopted for their pets. With ‘natural credentials’ so key to many pet owners’ purchasing decisions, rice ingredients are well placed to help manufacturers remove artificial preservatives and flavourings from their pet food ingredients’ labels and help them create products that are able to accommodate intolerances and allergies. In fact, BENEO’s rice ingredients are well-placed to help manufacturers deliver the best in veterinary diets and premium pet food products, naturally.

References

1. Fortune Business Insights™: Pet Food Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By Animal Type (Dogs, Cats, and Others), Form (Dry Pet Food, Wet Pet Food, and Snacks & Treats), Distribution Channel (Supermarkets/ Hypermarkets, Specialty Pet Food Stores, Online Channels, and Others), and Regional Forecast, 2020 – 2027.
2. Mintel 2019
3. BENEO Consumer Research on Attitudes towards Pet Food in US, Brazil, UK, Germany and China (N= *500, 2018)
4. Verlinden et al ‘Food allergy in dogs and cats: a review.’ Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition.;46(3):259-73. doi: 10.1080/10408390591001117. PMID: 16527756 (2006)
5. Twomey et al ‘The replacement value of sorghum and maize with or without supplemental enzymes for rice in extruded dog foods.’ Animal Feed Science and Technology 108 61–69 (2003)
6. Yang, L. et al ‘Rice protein extracted by different methods affects cholesterol metabolism in rats due to its lower digestibility.’ International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 12(11), 7594-7608 (2011)