The US-based company delivered two metric tons of animal protein to Hill’s Pet Nutrition.
Bond says this represents a major milestone toward commercializing its fermentation technology for pet food applications. The delivery scale will allow Hill’s to formulate a variety of test products at its Pet Nutrition Center in Topeka, Kansas, for testing and regulatory review. That data will be used for final ingredient analysis by the US Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM), as well as to prepare prototypes for market testing.
Several startups are working on developing meat proteins for pet health, according to Bond Pet Foods founder and CEO, Rich Kelleman. Some do this through cell culture, while others use traditional or biomass fermentation methods to create alternative proteins with nutritional value.
“We’re big fans of all the companies that are emerging in the space,” he told us.
Last year, we heard how BioCraft Pet Nutrition, a company that produces cultured meat for the pet food market, was created. chicken cell linefor both cat and dog food. It comes from stem cells; the boiled chicken component is formed under the process conditions inside a bioreactor.
Bond’s approach is different. It sources DNA taken from a blood sample from a live chicken, and then, using a fermentation process, the company’s R&D experts combine that DNA with yeast and place it in a fermentation tank, where it is fed sugars, vitamins, and minerals. When it reaches a certain density and composition, the fermented meat protein is dried and ground into a powder.
“We use a technology – precision fermentation – that has existed for more than half a century to produce enzymes for making cheese with vitamin B12 and lactic acid. We’re just developing the process to produce animal proteins more efficiently and responsibly like chicken, turkey and fish that can be the foundation for pet health.”
The company has a number of animal proteins in its commercial pipeline.
Scaleable, cost-effective, nutritionally complete proteinsThe
He continued: “The animal proteins we develop at Bond are nutritionally complete in terms of their essential amino acid profile but, equally important, they are scalable, with a cost structure that allows for high integration into a variety of pet food applications including kibble and wet formats.”
Kelleman argues that the startup’s straightforward production process with minimal downstream processing makes the math work for pet food applications. “At scale, we have a line of sight where Bond ingredients will be competitive in price with animal proteins commonly used in the industry – whether it’s meat trim, low-ash meal or dried bone broth. “
And Hill’s and Bond have entered into another agreement to expand their collaboration to produce secondary animal protein for the pet food major’s product portfolio. “This commitment represents Hill’s confidence in the value and performance of Bond’s protein proposition—and its potential for the industry at large,” the CEO said.
Road regulation
There is currently no pet food made from cell-cultured meat available on the shelves. In June last year, US regulators approved the sale of chicken made from animal cells for use in human foods. But they haven’t approved cultured meat as a pet food ingredient.
When asked when the company envisions these types of novel proteins securing US regulatory approval and becoming commercially available, Kelleman commented: “It’s up to Hill’s, working with the amount of protein delivered, its global innovation team is developing various prototypes for market evaluation – data generated will be used for FDA CVM evaluation. That engagement has already begun; the timeline will follow the standard CVM process for ingredient approval.”
Environmental impact The
Analyzing the environmental impact of its protein products is mission-critical for Bond, the founder says. A science-based lifecycle analysis (LCA) of its production process is underway. “We were just starting to produce significant quantities (tons) of our animal protein ingredients, which allowed us to start this practice; once the assessment is completed, we expect it to provide evidence of Bond’s reduced emissions and resource impact compared to conventional proteins on the market today.”
A learning from Plos One, published in 2017, says that increasing animal production is a threat to the sustainability of the global food system, and that the non-negligible contribution of dogs and cats exacerbates the problem and exacerbates the threat to sustainability. Due to the increase in pet ownership in various markets and the trends in the humanization of pet food, some fresh dog products compete directly in the human food system, the researchers noted. that.
One more more recent studiesapplied an economic value allocation approach to the impact of animal byproducts (ABP) and other animal products used in pet food because researchers believe that these better represent the environmental impact of pet food sector. They claim that the use of ABPs, long seen by the pet food industry and other commentators as circularity in action, is not in fact negligible in terms of environmental impact. “ABPs are not cost-free, and provide financial returns to the livestock industry that incentivize increased livestock production, with implications for environmental impacts.”
