Application of attractants in pet food

Pet attractants can be understood as seasonings, which are equivalent to daily soy sauce. The main function of attractants is to improve the palatability of food and enhance appetite; to cover up the odor in food, improve its palatability, and improve the flavor of food; to promote the digestion efficiency of pet food and the growth and development of dogs; and to improve the competitiveness of feed. For the application of pet attractants, the judgment of the standard of being eaten is mainly based on smell and taste. Because attractants can improve the taste and smell of food, strengthening this feature with the help of attractants can promote animal eating. Whether animals will eat or not depends on this feature of food. The smell and taste of food are used to judge whether they have eaten it before. If there is the same memory of smell and taste, the animal will eat, otherwise it will not.
Pet attractants usually use enzymatic hydrolysis technology, using protease to enzymatically hydrolyze large molecular proteins into polypeptides and amino acids, and then obtain them through Maillard reaction. It can be divided into three categories: flavoring agents, flavoring agents and aquatic attractants. Dog food and cat food containing pet attractants can smell meaty after opening; the particles are full, the color is uniform, and the color is darker.
Matters needing attention when using pet attractants in pet food:

1. Adding time of attractants: The choice of adding time is very critical for the attractant to work. Here, the actual adding time is the core factor that determines the fragrance retention time. Most of the dog food on the market currently adds attractants in the form of dry products, and the most commonly used is the puffed type. However, in the production process, if you choose to add attractants in the puffing granulation process, the granulation time will be extended as the puffing temperature increases, and the fragrance loss will be greater. Therefore, in this case, you need to choose an attractant with better fragrance retention. Another way of adding is to spray the surface with oil at the same time after granulation, but it is not permanent and will gradually fade. According to statistics, the most commonly used way of adding is to combine the above two methods. First, add a small amount of attractant during the granulation process to ensure the base fragrance of the food, and then spray the surface to ensure the surface fragrance. In this way, the combination of the two can prolong the fragrance of the food.

2. The amount of attractant added: Relatively speaking, the more attractants added to dog food, the better. Instead, the amount of attractant added should be accurately controlled. As mentioned above, dogs have a very sensitive sense of smell, which is 1,200 times that of humans. If too much attractant is added, it will cause taste fatigue in dogs, produce a saturation reaction, and even lead to food refusal in severe cases. Therefore, the amount of attractant added should be appropriate, and when adding, during the surface spraying stage, try to ensure that the mixture is evenly mixed.

The addition of pet attractants only plays an additional role in pet food. The most important thing is the quality of the pet food itself, which will also affect the effect of the attractant. Adding attractants can cover up the taste of the raw materials of pet food and change the final taste. But some flavors cannot be covered up, such as the smell of moldy raw materials. Therefore, when making pet food, the quality of the raw materials and the hygienic quality of the production process must be guaranteed.