Extruders for petfood and aquafeed. What technology is more versatile, cheaper and with the best technical support on the market?
More than ever, today’s consumers view their pets as members of the family. Just as a father or mother wants the best food for their children, pet owners want the same for their pets. The humanisation of our pets has been the turning point that has generated the greatest change in how we see and how we relate to these new members of the family.
Millennials, without a doubt, are the most influential in all these changes because they are more informed and are much more demanding, especially when choosing food for their pets. They not only hope that the food meets all their nutritional and quality expectations, but also that their pet will enjoy their food a lot. If they observe that their pet does not like the food, not only do they not buy it again, they also share their experience by word of mouth and spread it through social networks, potentially affecting the manufacturer’s sales.
Although the Latin American petfood market is generally characterised by a higher level of consumption of affordable and premium foods. The consumption of super premium foods has been gaining strength as a result of consumers being more informed and, therefore, they increasingly demand better quality ingredients and sources of nutrition with greater nutritional contributions, in addition to more sophisticated ingredients.
There is no definition of a super-premium food, but what is certain is that petfoods that are marketed as super premium, use increasingly complex ingredients.
On the label it is usually crossed with the selection of raw materials, concepts such as organic, holistic, 100 percent natural and ketogenic, among others. But, in addition, the offer is expanding to much more sophisticated levels towards extruded foods with high levels of addition of fresh meat, with a very large variety of protein of animal origin such as chicken, salmon, turkey, duck, rabbit, lamb among others; and in the case of vegetables such as berries, apple, carrot, chard, peas, etc. As well as food for certain health conditions of pets such as obesity, sensitive skin, allergies, diabetics, neutered, gastrointestinal, liver, urinary problems, and others.
In this diversity of products, there are super premium grain-free or grain-free foods, which, despite having no real nutritional reason for having this condition, are produced simply because consumers seek them. Manufacturers often combine this genre with some of the sophisticated raw materials they offer such as those mentioned above.
Manufacturing super premium foods, whether with or without grains, can pose significant challenges at the production level. Achieving a nutritionally complete meal requires a greater number of ingredients to obtain the proper balance, particularly with regard to amino acids and essential fatty acids.
Extru-Tech has developed state-of-the-art technology to produce high-quality, aseptic foods that meet the nutritional requirements of pets and the high expectations of owners and has extensive experience working with the largest and most important North American petfood producers.
In practice, it is often thought that formulating one type of food or another, reaching all segments and using a wide spectrum of raw materials, has to do only with a formulation issue. But the truth is that the problem is much more complicated than that. The more complex the formula, we find that not all extruders on the market are capable of processing them properly and delivering a food of high nutritional quality, where the croquettes have the texture, hardness and above all the palatability that the pet owner expects to find.
There are two extrusion technologies: one being single screw, and the other, double screw. Much has been written about the differences between the two technologies. However, you have to look at both extrusion systems from different angles to know which is best when deciding on which to invest in.
When analysing the differences in the production of food for human consumption, without a doubt, the twin screw extruder has great advantages and greater flexibility over that of a screw.
In the production of petfood and aquafeed, there are no significant differences in terms of product quality between Extru-Tech technology with its single screw extruder and those with double screw. What’s more, it has great advantages such as:
- From an investment cost point of view, single screw extruders are cheaper
- The cost of production in a single screw extruder is also lower, since it uses a considerably smaller motor, even producing in some cases, greater production capacity with the same product quality
- The cost of maintenance and spare parts is also notably lower in single screw extruders
- Variety of products
At Extru-Tech we have the technology to produce a wide range of foods in the same single screw extruder, for example:
- Petfood
- Croquettes from 1 to 4 colours and multiple shapes simultaneously.
- Bi-coloured and marbled foods.
- Food from inexpensive to super premium with the addition of high levels of fresh meat
- Short and long semi-wet treats or prizes of 1 or 2 colours
- Aquaculture Feed
- Floating, slow and fast sinking
- Shrimp foods
- Micro pellets from 0.7 mm diameter upwards
For more information on Extru-Tech visit their website, HERE.
