Excerpted from a press release.
Bond Pet Foods has shipped its first two metric tons of an animal protein created by fermentation to Hill’s Pet Nutritionwhich will begin formulating test products using innovative, more sustainable ingredients for regulatory review and market evaluation.
Separately, the companies announced a second joint development agreement to create additional animal protein for potential use in Hill products. The collaboration between Bond and Hill’s, announced in late 2021, aims to develop a source of more sustainable animal protein to meet the dietary needs of dogs and cats.
The two metric tons produced by Bond represents a major milestone toward the commercialization of its fermentation technology for pet food applications. The delivery scale will allow Hill’s to formulate different products at its Pet Nutrition Center in Topeka, Kansas, for testing. That data will be used for final ingredient analysis by the US Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, as well as to prepare prototypes for market testing.
“We are excited to continue our relationship with Bond and support their truly novel approach to produce animal proteins in a more sustainable way that meets our high quality standards,” said Dave Baloga, executive vice president, Science & Technology for Hill’s Pet Nutrition.
Established technology applied to pet food applications
Rich Kelleman, founder and CEO of Bond Pet Foods, said producing tons of product at the 45,000-liter scale is a major milestone in the Bond-Hill partnership. “Furthermore, Hill’s commitment to expand our work together demonstrates the opportunity we collectively see in Bond ingredients for their future food and pet industries,” he said.
According to Bond, its precision fermentation platform is safe and established – building on a process that has existed for more than half a century to make everything from enzymes (rennet) for making cheese to vitamin B12.
The process has been carefully reengineered to better produce proteins such as chicken, turkey and beef for pet food applications, without the need to raise and process farm animals.
The company noted that in the US alone, 74 million dogs and 56 million cats in households currently consume large amounts of animal-based protein. As a result, as noted in a 2017 study published in the scientific journal PLoS One, livestock accounts for up to 30% of the carbon dioxide emissions associated with domestic meat consumption. It represents both CO2 and additional greenhouse gas emissions from animal production.
According to Petfood Industry Top Pet Food Companies, Hill’s Pet Nutrition sells more than 300 products, primarily through authorized pet supply and veterinary retailers in more than 80 countries worldwide.
Bond Pet Foods is a Boulder, Colorado-based company that uses biotechnology to create meat proteins that are nutritionally comparable to their conventional counterparts. Using some of the same processes used in craft production, Bond produces high-quality animal proteins through fermentation, harvests them to meet the nutritional requirements of companion animals, and provides of ingredients to manufacturers for pet food, treat and supplement applications.
