Kibble is produced using a disturbing rendering method. Although rendering techniques are subject to rules and regulations, the ingredients in rendered dog foods are not necessarily what the dog food packaging states.

A rendering plant is an operation that recycles dead animals into various products, including pet food ingredients. At least 85% of all rendered products produced in the US end up as animal feed. There are two categories of renderers; food production facilities and independent renderers. 

The materials processed in a food production rendering plant include offal from slaughterhouses and whole animals that die on farms or in transit. Animal offal is defined as animals' viscera, heads, bones, and blood.

Additional materials used in independent renderers can include condemned or fallen animals that died from unknown causes before slaughter. Restaurant-generated materials, including fryer grease, grocery store discards including bones, fat, scrap from meat cutting or leftovers from the deli, butcher shop scraps, and animals euthanized in shelters, veterinary clinics, or zoos, and roadkill are also used by independent renderers.

According to the National Renderers Association, in 2011, slaughterhouse materials accounted for 83% of all rendered materials, 10% came from the restaurant industry, and 7% from grocery stores and butcher shops. Approximately 3.75% of the slaughterhouse materials come from downed animals that died before being slaughtered. However, these figures fail to add in the roadkill and euthanized animals that are also processed.	 

In the United States, the rendering industry processes more than 25 million tons of animal by-products annually. Without rendering plants, all biological materials would be sent to landfills and incinerators or inappropriately buried or otherwise disposed of, creating a vast and harmful environmental impact on air and water quality. The sheer volume of the animal parts considered inedible for humans, bones, fat, blood, feathers, and some organs would completely overwhelm the landfill operations.

The National Renderers Association, or NRA,  the association that oversees rendering plants in the United States, has written a book entitled Essential Rendering, which is publicly available on their website. The book details why rendering is a valuable process, especially for the pet food and animal feed industry, and on sustainability. The NRA's definition for their contribution to the sustainability of natural resources states, "The ability to produce pet food that provides sufficient energy and the amounts of essential nutrients required to maintain good health now and into the future with the smallest possible environmental footprint."  

Rendering is the process of removing moisture and fat from raw animal material through high-heat cooking. The rendering plant functions similarly to a large kitchen. The cooker in the plant combines the raw product to maintain a certain ratio of pet carcasses, animal waste, and other rejected materials. 

The material is then moved to another auger for fine shredding once it has been chopped into little bits. The nonstop batch cooking process melts the meat away from the bones in the boiling soup-like slurry 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 

The soup produces a yellow grease or tallow fat that rises to the top and is skimmed off throughout the heating process. The cooked meat and bone are placed in a hammer-mill press, which squeezes out any leftover moisture and grinds the result into a fine powder.

The rendering process produces meat and bone meal, meat meal, poultry meal, hydrolyzed feather meal, blood meal, fish meal, animal digest, and animal fats. 

It's critical to understand the terms "meal" and "animal." A meal is a rendering product; after collecting animal scraps and whole dead animals, all are cooked at high temperatures that remove moisture and fat. A meal can be made from poultry, fish, and blood and still be called a meat meal. 

But how does it qualify as "meat"? According to the regulations, if it was once part of an animal, it can be called meat! Animal fat is also just that. There's no intensive description because it's unclear, in most cases, from what animal the fat was derived. 

All rendering operations are required to test for Salmonella and Enterobacteriaceae. Studies performed in 2001 and 2002 found that approximately 26% and 25% of finished rendered product samples were positive for Salmonella, respectively. Salmonella was detected in 56.4 % of 101 animal protein-based samples. Samples from 48 out of 78 rendering plants were positive for Salmonella. for various pathogens, including C. perfingens, Salmonella, and Coliform. 

Another dangerous contaminant found in dog food is sodium pentobarbital, the active ingredient in euthanasia solutions. Per the FDA, any pet foods that contain even a trace amount of pentobarbital are considered adulterated or fail to fall within the legal standards for food. Releasing adulterated foods into the commerce stream is a federal offense. The company that produced the food recalled all products that were contaminated immediately. However, this is not always the case. In other incidents, the products remained on the shelves for months before the companies finally removed them. 

In the case above, the pentobarbital was linked to contaminated beef fat. However, in a lawsuit against Rachel Ray Nutrish, Just 6 dog food evidence included DNA test results confirming that dog DNA was food in the "Rachel Ray Lamb Meal and Brown Rice Recipe Dog Food." Of course, there was no mention of a dog on the ingredient list!

The FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine allows pet food manufacturers to use components from "diseased animals and animals that have died other than by slaughter" without informing pet food buyers. Additionally, the FDA has no scientific evidence that pet food derived from ill or non-slaughtered animals is safe for pets to consume (or for pet owners to bring into their homes).

Dog parents expect federal guidelines to care for consumers, both in the human world and the pet world, and yet the FDA is allowing this to continue. The minimum requirement should be that the companies disclose this information to consumers.

Of course, the answer is relatively straightforward, would you purchase the bag of dog food if it claimed to contain parts from diseased animals inside? Pet food is often purchased based on what the bag looks like; you wouldn't want to see dead animals on the bag or even on the label; you would like a bag that looks as close to real food as possible.

On the shelf, it may appear healthy with its pictures of fresh meat and vegetables, but what went into creating that pet food? Doing your research on the product you're feeding your dog, searching for recalls, and learning about the process is incredibly important.

Next time you pick up that bag of dog food, look at the ingredients. What does the label say? If you contacted the company, would they respond? Would they be transparent in their responses? 

Rendering is the process of removing moisture and fat from raw animal material through a high-heat cooking process.

Kibble can be comprised of diseased animals or animals that died of unknown causes before being slaughtered.

Take a step back and evaluate this article. Do your research to validate and read additional information. 

Evaluation of nutritional value and microbiological safety in commercial dog food | SpringerLink  

Raw and rendered animal by-products as ingredients in dog diets | Journal of Animal Science | Oxford Academic  

Rendered ingredients significantly influence sustainability, quality, and safety of pet food

https://www3.epa.gov/ttnchie1/ap42/ch09/final/c9s05-3.pdf  

https://www.classaction.org/media/parks-v-ainswroth-pet-nurtition-llc.pdf 

<a href="https://feedreal.com/glossary/kibble">Kibble</a> is produced using a disturbing rendering method. Although rendering techniques are subject to rules and regulations, the ingredients in rendered dog foods are not necessarily what the dog food packaging states.

In the United States, the rendering industry processes more than 25 million tons of animal <a href="https://feedreal.com/glossary/byproduct">by-products</a> annually. Without rendering plants, all biological materials would be sent to landfills and incinerators or inappropriately buried or otherwise disposed of, creating a vast and harmful environmental impact on air and <a href="https://feedreal.com/glossary/adenosine-triphosphate">water</a> quality. The sheer volume of the animal parts considered inedible for humans, bones, fat, blood, feathers, and some organs would completely overwhelm the landfill operations.

The National Renderers Association, or NRA,  the association that oversees rendering plants in the United States, has written a book entitled Essential Rendering, which is publicly available on their website. The book details why rendering is a valuable process, especially for the pet food and animal feed industry, and on sustainability. The NRA's definition for their contribution to the sustainability of natural resources states, "The ability to produce pet food that provides sufficient <a href="https://feedreal.com/glossary/adenosine-triphosphate">energy</a> and the amounts of essential nutrients required to maintain good health now and into the future with the smallest possible environmental footprint."  

The rendering process produces meat and <a href="https://feedreal.com/glossary/bone-meal">bone meal</a>, <a href="https://feedreal.com/glossary/meat-meal">meat meal</a>, poultry meal, hydrolyzed feather meal, blood meal, fish meal, animal digest, and animal fats. 

But how does it qualify as "meat"? According to the regulations, if it was once part of an animal, it can be called meat! <a href="https://feedreal.com/glossary/animal-fat">Animal fat</a> is also just that. There's no intensive description because it's unclear, in most cases, from what animal the fat was derived. 

All rendering operations are required to test for Salmonella and Enterobacteriaceae. Studies performed in 2001 and 2002 found that approximately 26% and 25% of finished rendered product samples were positive for Salmonella, respectively. Salmonella was detected in 56.4 % of 101 animal <a href="https://feedreal.com/glossary/catabolism">protein</a>-based samples. Samples from 48 out of 78 rendering plants were positive for Salmonella. for various pathogens, including C. perfingens, Salmonella, and Coliform. 

The Rendering Process: How is Dog Food Made?

Feed Real Institute

Services

Summit

We help with