​ General Manager Jones

In today's booming pet health food market, it is the core task of every brand to develop a suitable health food product that pets will love. In addition to product efficacy and safety, palatability is also an important factor that consumers are concerned about. Even if the nutrients in the formula are well-designed, it's futile if the product is not palatable to pets. Pet brands need to find a balance between meeting the nutritional expectations of owners and the taste needs of pets.This time, I would like to talk to you about how to optimize the formulation design during the development process and enhance the product's palatability, so as to create healthy supplements that are loved by pets.

I. What is palatability and why is it so important at the R&D stage?

Palatability refers to the combined experience of food in terms of taste, smell, texture and other sensory factors that affect a pet's eating behavior. For brands, good palatability of health products not only ensures that pets are willing to eat, but also enhances the competitiveness of the product in the market, in short, it is to make pets eat happily and love to eat, after all, no owner will want to buy back the pet does not like to eat the health products.

3 reasons why palatability is important:

1. Increase your pet's acceptance: even the best health care products, if your pet is not willing to eat, the effect will be impossible to talk about.

2. Increase the repurchase rate of the product: A product that is highly palatable will attract consumers to repurchase and consolidate brand loyalty.

3. Reduce product waste: Products with poor palatability are easily discarded, resulting in waste and negative evaluations.

II. How to improve the palatability when developing pet healthcare products?

Formulation is the key to developing pet health products ! In addition to the proportion of nutrients, palatability is one of the most often overlooked but crucial aspects of pet food. Unlike human beings who can choose food through their consciousness, pets mainly rely on their instincts to decide whether to eat or not. Therefore, the following factors should be taken into consideration when designing pet health food formulas:

1. the importance of smell

For dogs and cats, the sense of smell is much more sensitive than the sense of taste. Cats have 40 times more olfactory perception than humans, with about 200 million olfactory receptors, while dogs have about 150 million to 220 million. Therefore, pets' first impression of food is often “smells good” rather than “tastes good”, so when designing formulas, special attention should be paid to the aroma of the product. As pets rely on their sense of smell to evaluate food, adding fragrance can significantly enhance the appeal of a product without affecting its nutritional structure. Common sources of aroma include meat extracts or natural flavors, which can mimic your pet's preferred scent and increase willingness to eat.

The use of natural flavors or fat additives can enhance the appeal of food. Natural ingredients such as chicken or fish oil, for example, not only provide essential nutrients, but also give off an enticing flavor that will entice your pet to eat. This is why these ingredients are often included in many commercially available pet health foods to enhance palatability.

2. Diversity of taste design

In pet health food design, texture and shape are critical to enhancing palatability. In addition to the flavor of the formulation, the texture and shape of the product is also an important factor in the pet's preference.

• Powder

Developing multi-purpose powder formulas to suit different types of pet dietary patterns. Brands can consider designing powders that can be mixed into food or sprinkled directly onto meals, making it easier for owners to add health powders to their pets' daily diets, whether wet or dry, without affecting the texture of the staple food, and thus increasing acceptance by pets.

• capsule

Capsule dosage forms should emphasize palatability and ease of swallowing, especially for pets that prefer to swallow whole. Brands may consider adopting a small and smooth capsule design to make it easier to swallow and minimize rejection by pets. In addition, the capsule shells can be made of an instant formula for quick release of nutrients in the stomach and intestines. For pets that do not like to swallow, owners can easily open the capsule and mix the powder into the food, adding flexibility to ensure that pets with different eating habits and diets can benefit from the product.

• Tablets

The lozenges have the right amount of firmness and chewiness to satisfy pets with different chewing preferences. Brands can consider adding a slightly crunchy texture to the design, especially for dogs that like to chew, as this design helps to clean teeth and enhance palatability. The shape and size of the tablets should be precisely designed to make it easy for small dogs or cats to eat and avoid swallowing difficulties or food refusal problems. The reasonable shape design allows pets to chew easily, increasing the fun of chewing and improving the daily applicability of the health food.

• 軟咀嚼

Soft Chews have the right amount of softness to allow pets to chew easily, but at the same time maintain a certain degree of chewiness to avoid excessive softness affecting palatability. It is ideal for pets that like to chew but do not prefer hard food, especially for older dogs and cats with sensitive teeth.

How does FUE-PET work with brands to conduct fit testing when assisting in development?

In the development process, one of the steps that should not be ignored is the fitness test. Typically, our customers will conduct the fitness assessment in the following ways:

• Actual Feeding Test

Palatability is assessed by trying different formulas on a group of dogs and cats of different breeds, observing their reactions to the food, and recording the speed and quantity of food consumed.

• Multiple Tests

A single test cannot fully reflect your pet's food preference, as your pet may be curious about a new food, resulting in a high serving size initially. Therefore, conducting multiple tests and observing the acceptance of the formula over time is an important step in ensuring palatability.

3. Use of natural ingredients and low irritation formulations

Many owners are concerned that too many additives or unhealthy ingredients may affect the health of their pets. Therefore, when designing nutraceutical formulas, you should avoid the use of too many artificial flavors, colors or preservatives. Instead, use natural ingredients that not only have excellent nutritional value, but also enhance palatability, which can give owners greater peace of mind.

Natural protein sources such as chicken, salmon, and beef are not only favorites of pets, but also provide a wealth of nutrients. Choosing high-quality, minimally processed ingredients makes health food more appealing.

4. Pet food is not as salty as it should be! Control sodium content and avoid over salting

Different pets have very different taste preferences. Cats have only about 450 taste buds, while dogs have about 1,700 and humans have 9,000 taste buds. Therefore, pets are not as sensitive to salty and sweet flavors as humans are, and they rely more on the feel and texture of food. As mentioned above, pets' perception of salty and sweet flavors is much lower than that of humans.

Therefore, the conclusion of “too salty” or “not good” after trying pet food is often incorrect. Many pet brand owners/farmers try pet supplements for their pets, but it is not necessary. As human taste is more sensitive, it is easy to judge “fresh” as “salty” and create the wrong impression that the pet food is “salty”.

For pets, scent is more important than salty!

Dogs and cats do not have a high need for salty flavors. They have evolved biologically and are accustomed to getting enough sodium from meat, so it is the aroma and taste of the food that really attracts them, not the excessive salt that stimulates their appetite.

Sodium is an essential mineral in the daily life of pets, but too much salt can cause negative health effects. Therefore, the sodium content should be reasonably controlled according to the standards of organizations such as AAFCO (American Association of Pet Food Control) or FEDIAF (European Pet Food Industry Association) to ensure that the long-term consumption of pets will not pose health risks.

III. Balance of palatability and nutrition: healthy and tasty pet supplements

In the process of developing and formulating pet healthcare products, brand owners should not only pursue palatability, but also insist on the nutritional value of the products, so that pets can enjoy the delicious taste while getting the nutritional supplementation needed by the body, which is the key to enhancing consumer satisfaction! Developing delicious and nutritious pet health products is a challenge that requires both science and creativity.

FUE-PET's R&D team will design formulas to suit your pet's tastes by understanding your market position and your pet's physiology and dietary preferences. In addition to experienced and knowledgeable product consultants to help you with your planning, FUE-PET also has a dedicated pet healthcare manufacturing plant and machinery to ensure the quality of our products.

If you are interested in branding your pet's healthcare products, we welcome you to connect with our product consultants on Line@!