Alfa Laval partners with GA Petfoods to create world-class kibble

Based in Lancashire, the family-owned pet food manufacturer supplies private-label pet food to hundreds of partners across the world, cultivating its recipes to offer industry-high levels of fresh meat and fish content within its products.

Originally partnering with Alfa Laval over a decade ago, the ongoing collaboration sees GA Petfoods harness Alfa Laval’s separation and thermal transfer technologies to tap into cutting-edge production techniques, allowing both process efficiency and fresh meat content to be maximised.

"What we’re doing at GA Petfoods is driven by increasingly conscious pet owners across the world. Many are no longer content with an off-the-shelf, dry-rendered kibble that’s lacking in flavour and nutritional value. Pet owners are now demanding the same standards for their companions’ food as they are for their own, which means higher fresh meat inclusion," said Scott Morley, head of design at GA Petfoods

"This is something that we have been pushing the boundaries of for many years, and Alfa Laval’s kit has been central to taking this as far as we possibly can to extract every drop of value from our feedstocks."

Using locally sourced ingredients from trusted farms and fisheries, GA Petfoods cooks ingredients such as Aberdeen Angus beef and Scottish salmon at exactly 82°C, retaining their characteristic flavours and preserving protein content.

After cooking, an Alfa Laval OilPlus decanter allows the oil to be separated from the meat slurry for maximum control over both flavours and nutritional content. The slurry is then fed into an AlfaFlash plate flash evaporator, allowing moisture content to be reduced drastically - from 90% to 50% - before entering the extruder for final processing, offering a major increase in efficiency.

Meanwhile, the separated oil is fed into an Alfa Laval high-speed separator for purification, enhancing the quality even further into a human-grade product that can be used for coating the finished kibble, offering maximum palatability.

"GA Petfoods can be seen as the benchmark for the entire pet food manufacturing industry. They lead the way in fresh meat inclusion and nutritional value, which is why so many private-label brands turn to them," stated Dan Tasker, account manager for Alfa Laval’s Food and Water Division. 

"This long and happy partnership existed long before I joined the company, but is one that I have already seen expand and grow in my time at Alfa Laval. It is our pleasure to support GA Petfoods in the production of the world’s finest pet food, and I hope that other manufacturers look at this collaboration with a view to emulating its success."

www.alfalaval.co.uk