The evolving protein landscape for pet foods

A dynamic landscape

The landscape of proteins available to feed our pets has been changing since the start of the petfood industry, and it will continue to evolve in the coming decades. As the petfood industry follows human food trends and is tightly interlinked with the human food production system, changes in patterns of food consumption around the world impact what we want and can feed to our pets. 

The changing dietary wishes in societies impact the production volumes of conventional foods as well as stimulate the development of alternative and novel foods, and these dynamics vary across the globe. The global demand for meat, eggs and dairy is growing, in particular in countries like China as income levels rise, cities grow and populations increase. The petfood industry may benefit from this trend as the volumes of the concomitant co-products typically used by this industry also increase. 

At the same time, due to the high environmental impact of meat, governments are starting to demote the consumption of meat and stimulate the development and consumption of alternative protein sources. 

For example, the European Union stimulates the advancement of the culture of pulses and the UN marked 2016 as the International Year of Pulses to raise awareness about these important crops that are essential for sustainable agriculture and nutrition.

Environmental – and ethical – concerns regarding animal production give rise to diets that are more and more plant-based. Development of plant-based meat analogues can help with this transition, and will find its way into petfoods as well. Insects, seaweed, micro-algae, microbial protein, and cultured meat are examples of alternatives that are already commer-cialised and will become available at larger volumes and at lower prices in the future. 

Assessing the footprint

For the petfood industry, it is important to nuance the environmental impact of the livestock-derived products used in foods for dogs and cats. The impact associated with the production and use of a product – for example, the use of land, and the global warming potential – can be quantified using the life cycle assessment technique. In doing so, it is common practice to divide the total environmental impact of producing the animal over the different products based on their economic value. 

This means that the majority of the impact would be apportioned to the meat products and a minor part to the lower value co-products. Data on the environmental impact of the main animal protein sources (meat meals for dry extruded, organs for wet retorted pet foods) are not yet readily available. 

The European Commission and petfood industry have been working since 2014 on developing rules to quantify the product environmental footprint, which will be instrumental for differentiating pet foods and allowing owners to make ‘green’ choices. 

Insects and other alternatives

Insects are gaining interest in the context of a circular economy as they have the potential to upcycle residual streams in the food chain. New automated production systems are being developed and applied in this rapidly growing industry. Rearing insects on (safe) residual streams is being extensively tested and will further lower the environmental impact and make insects more economic. 

However, it will be a great challenge for insect producers to outcompete meat meals, in particular with respect to the environmental impact. 

Functionalities of insects, beyond being an ‘exotic’ protein source suitable for hypoallergenic diets, will obviously help in this respect, but have still to be demonstrated. 

Meanwhile, the limited availability of arable land promotes the production of seaweed, microalgae, duckweed and microbial proteins. As with insects, investment is going into increasing yields, scaling up, optimising required processing steps and assuring product consistency and safety. Multiple alternative protein sources are already commercialised such as duckweed protein concentrate and microbial protein. 

Is the future cultured?

Finally and importantly, significant and rapid progress has been made in culturing meat. The price has dropped to about €26/kg ($32/kg) and enormous purchase deals up to €241 ($297) million have been made for meat grown in a laboratory. If cultured meat reduces the need for the livestock production, it will have a large impact on the availability of co-products for the petfood industry. Depending on the price, owners would also want to start using the cultured meat to feed their pets as well. 

It is clear that the evolution of the protein landscape is accelerating due to the challenges faced in feeding the growing world in a sustainable way. The array of raw materials available for the petfood industry continues to evolve, with foods based on cultured wild boar meat for dogs and cultured mouse meat for cats on the horizon.