We strive for:
• Locally produced
• Raw materials of the highest quality
• No large stocks provide freshly produced, tasty feed
• No dyes or preservatives
“Fresh meat” contains a lot of water
According to current feed legislation, each ingredient/ingredient group in a feed must be listed in the list of ingredients by weight before cooking in descending order. This means that fresh “meat ingredients” or other products that contain large amounts of water end up high on the list of ingredients. Such ingredients can therefore give the impression of being the main source of the feed’s nutritional content. However, this does not have to be the case.
Let's look at an example. Suppose a fictional feed contains:
Fictional feed 1
25% fresh meat ingredients
24% corn
24% wheat
15% dried fish
10% animal fat
2% vegetable oil
The manufacturer of the food then lists “meat” as the first ingredient and the full list of ingredients becomes:
Fresh meat, corn, wheat, dried fish, animal fat and vegetable oil.
A list of ingredients that “looks good” to the naked eye and gives the impression that a large proportion of the food’s nutrients come from fresh “meat”.
The same fictitious product as above, if the list of ingredients were made taking into account the water content of the raw material, would instead be:
Corn (31%)
Wheat (31%)
Dried fish (18%)
Animal fat (11%)
Dried meat raw material (7%)
Vegetable fat (2%).
The recipe and the final product are the same, but the two ingredient lists look completely different.
This reasoning is important to keep in mind when looking at and comparing different tables of contents.
Cooking reduces the water content
When looking at an ingredient list, one thing to take into account is that fresh meat contains approximately 75% water. During the preparation of a dry food, a large part of this water is dried away. As in the example above, this means that 25% “fresh meat raw material” in a dry food only means just under 7% “meat raw material” in the final product. Since the water contained in the “fresh meat raw material” does not contain any nutrients other than water, an ingredient list that contains ingredients with widely varying water contents is misleading. In cases where the declaration is reinforced with a marketing message such as “Contains 25% fresh meat”, we believe it is clearly misleading.
Dried protein raw material – what does it mean?
AlgGutten uses dried meat protein in our dry food. These are raw materials where most of the water has been dried out. A dried protein raw material is both easier and microbially safer to use in the manufacture of dry food. There is currently no scientific support for the positive effects of using “fresh meat” instead of a dried animal protein raw material in a dry food.
When it comes to dried protein raw materials, there is a large variation in both quality and digestibility, depending on how the raw material has been handled and produced. Therefore, it is very difficult to compare, for example, the raw material; dried chicken/dried animal protein (chicken), in different feeds from different manufacturers. Even in cases where the raw material has the same name, both quality and digestibility can differ significantly.
The protein raw materials that AlgGutten chooses to use in our dry food consist of carefully selected raw materials, for example, chicken beaks and feet are not included because these parts have a very low digestibility. The raw material is gently dried at a low temperature. This is a time-consuming and expensive process but in return yields a raw material that has a very high digestibility. It is possible to dry raw materials in a short time and at a high temperature, but since it significantly lowers the digestibility of the raw material, this is not something we choose to base our products on.
The proportion of “meat raw material” is not a quality mark in itself
In conclusion, it is not as simple as the proportion of “meat raw material” in a product determining the quality of the product. Stating the proportion of a “meat raw material”, whether dried or fresh, says nothing about the quality of the raw material, absolutely nothing about the nutrients it contains, and nothing about its digestibility. Regardless of whether a protein is of animal or vegetable origin, it is its digestibility and the amino acids it consists of that ultimately benefit the cat or dog.
That's why we at AlgGutten choose to define, and talk about, the nutritional value of our products instead of their ingredients. All raw materials in our feeds are selected with regard to their nutritional content, digestibility/availability for the dog and function, and of course that the raw material is safe and environmentally sustainable. That's what we mean by quality seen from the real needs of the dog.
Common to all our products is optimized digestibility, precise nutritional content and high palatability.
If you have any questions about our feed and its ingredients, don't hesitate to contact us!
Our food is produced in accordance with over 50 laws and regulations covering the production of food for our pets. We also follow the guidelines for good practice issued by the European Pet Food Industry Association (FEDIAF) to ensure we meet, and where possible, exceed, the high standards of dog food you should expect.
http://www.fediaf.org/self-regulation/nutrition