Americans love pets. Sixty-eight percent of households in the United States include a pet, according to a survey conducted by the American Pet Products Association, Inc. The number of homes with a companion animal—84.6 million—is growing, and millennials now own more pets than any other generation.
The increase in pet ownership is also a gravy train for the companion animal food industry. Americans spent $29.07 billion on pet food in 2017, according to APPA.
Kansas businesses have the ability to tap into that market, said Suzanne Ryan-Numrich, international marketing director at the Kansas Department of Agriculture. “We have a lot of good things going for us. We have an incredible supply of grain. The infrastructure is there. The ingredients are there.
“We have the complete package in Kansas,” she said, noting that the state is also a hub for pet food manufacturing equipment.
Several of the world’s largest pet food manufacturers are located within the Kansas City Animal Health Corridor from Manhattan, Kansas, to Columbia, Missouri, as well as more than 300 companies and organizations involved in animal health and nutrition, according to KDA. That’s one reason the 2018 Kansas Governor’s Summit on Agricultural Growth identified the pet food industry as one of 19 sectors of Kansas agriculture to target for growth.
Expanding trade
KDA aims to improve demand for the state’s pet food products domestically and around the world. Ryan-Numrich said State Trade Expansion Program grants administered by the Small Business Administration support KDA’s marketing programs and help small business owners expand their exports. She works with cooperators such as U.S. Grains Council, U.S. Livestock Genetics Export, Inc., the U.S. Meat Export Federation and other food export associations.
Using STEP grants, KDA has conducted several pet food trade missions, she said. “Those have been some of our most successful trade missions we have had at the department.”
In 2017, a group went on a trade mission to Petfood Forum China and Pet Fair Asia in Shanghai, China. In 2018, a delegation attended Petfood Forum Asia in Bangkok, Thailand.
“With our trade mission to Thailand last year we had over $5.5 million in actual sales, so that was a really good trade mission,” Ryan-Numrich said.
She was also pleased with the ingredient buyer mission KDA did at Petfood Forum in Kansas City, Missouri, recently. The department plans to conduct a buyer mission at Global Pet Expo in Orlando, Florida, next year as well as attend a show in Mexico. Having the opportunity to talk to buyers about what they need is beneficial.
Coordinating investments
KDA is cooperating with Kansas sorghum groups and Kansas State University on pet food research, too. The cooperators received a Federal-State Market Improvement Program grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service.
Sarah Sexton-Bowser is managing director of the Center for Sorghum Improvement at K-State. She said the center is a collaborative, farmer-oriented program that was started in April 2016 with an initiative from the Kansas Grain Sorghum Commission, the Sorghum Checkoff and K-State. KDA also joined the investment.
Sexton-Bowser, a sorghum producer herself, said that at the heart of the initiative is “how do we move the needle on the front of demand, yield and value for sorghum?” By capitalizing on existing research at public institutions and connecting them with private companies, cooperators can continue to develop and deploy technology and really move the needle on advancements for sorghum farmers, she said.
The FSMIP grant fits that bill, she said, as it enables additional research on sorghum applications in pet food while providing an opportunity to increase literacy about sorghum’s benefits in the pet food industry and with consumers.
“Grains as a whole have a lot of positive applications in pet food. Sorghum specifically is a part of that. It has a nice protein profile and opportunities in regard to looking at animal health outcomes,” Sexton-Bowser said. “Currently the Sorghum Checkoff is looking at some of the antioxidant properties of sorghum and how those support animal health. Other studies look at digestive support and healthy digestive outcomes with sorghum inclusion.”
Sexton-Bowser said Greg Aldrich and his colleagues in feed science at K-State undertake research for the sorghum pet food grant project. Kadri Koppel in the department of food, nutrition, dietetics and health conducts sensory analysis for the project.
Conducting research
Aldrich, a research associate professor in the grain sciences and industry department at K-State, coordinates the university’s pet food program and researches pet food processing methods and ingredients.
“The focus of my research laboratory is looking at the effects of processing on safety, nutrition and shelf life. We’re looking at all those layers—ingredients, how they affect the process and nutrition and long-term shelf life of the food. We are trying to make sure we provide optimal nutrition for the animal, both near and long term,” Aldrich said.
“The big picture is that pet food in the U.S. is a $30 billion industry, and it continues to grow year over year, even during recessionary times. We are seeing an increasing interest and awareness in the foods we deliver to our companion animals,” he said.
Extruded kibbles are a traditional type of pet food, but freeze-dried and raw food formats are a trend in pet foods now, Aldrich explained. He’s doing research and evaluation of those types of foods as well as different treats for companion animals—another big trend in pet food production.
Aldrich said the pet food trade demands going beyond traditional ingredients like corn, wheat, soy and chicken and including novel ingredients or other ingredient options in same commodity base—for example, sorghum. Researchers use whole sorghum and mill sorghum into flour and bran to use in pet food formulations.
They create new ingredient options by deconstructing or using fractions of the grain. “The idea is that the sum of the parts is more than the whole,” he said.
Food safety and nutrition are kept at the forefront of their research. “Food safety for pets is equal to or, in some cases today, more demanding than it is for human food. We have the same exact regulations as human food except that you aren’t required to label for allergens like a peanut allergy,” Aldrich said.
He emphasized that because they use a lot of agricultural commodities and co-products from animal slaughter in pet food, they have to be very careful about potential contamination with salmonella, listeria and other pathogens. That can be challenging, he said, as heating and processing can also destroy vitamins.
“I can kill all the pathogens, but if I destroy the nutrients too I have just as big an issue,” Aldrich said. “I have a microbiology lab where we evaluate on a routine basis things we can do to assure the safety of pet foods.”
Educating students
K-State now offers a minor in pet food science as part of its pet food program, which Aldrich coordinates. He said the university wanted to add value to the state’s economy and recognized that no other state was really focused on this sector. K-State has a food science program and knew that the companies producing pet foods have a demand for workers.
“It’s about education, it’s about expanding opportunities for job placement in the state and elsewhere, and it’s about value-added agriculture.” Aldrich and his colleagues are training young people for careers in the growing field of pet food manufacturing.
“We’re doing some good research to support the safety and nutrition of those products,” Aldrich said. “We’ve gained quite a bit of momentum, not only in the university community but with economic development and the Kansas Department of Agriculture,” he said.
“I think we’re doing a noble thing here.”
Shauna Rumbaugh can be reached at 620-227-1805 or [email protected].
