This short article was released in the March 2023 problem of Pet Food Processing. Read it and other short articles from this problem in our March digital edition.
In recent years, fresh, preservative-free items have actually ended up being significantly popular amongst family pet owners. However, these items feature a unique difficulty for family pet food makers and suppliers — guaranteeing the food is kept cold throughout transportation and storage. Without an efficient cold chain management system, fresh family pet foods can rapidly ruin, causing waste and client frustration.
To keep freshness and safety, family pet food makers should utilize a strenuous cold chain management system that guarantees appropriate temperature level control from production to shipment. This includes a mix of temperature-controlled storage and transport, in addition to keeping an eye on temperature levels at numerous points along the supply chain. While this procedure can be pricey, it is vital to safeguard food safety and quality while preserving client complete satisfaction.
Maintaining freshness
Secaucus, NJ-based Freshpet is one family pet food maker that has actually executed a thorough cold chain system that consists of a number of procedures to guarantee item freshness. The initial step is saving item in your area near its production center, permitting fast and effective circulation. Strict procedures are then followed to guarantee that items are saved, carried and dealt with at the best temperature levels.
Freshpet’s fresh family pet food should be kept cold from the time it leaves the processing plant to when it is positioned in the merchant’s cooled cases, which causes transport and circulation difficulties for the processor.
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Source: Freshpet
“We store our product locally to our manufacturing and then quickly distribute to our customers through multiple nodes of warehousing and modes of distribution,” explained Dirk Martin, vice president of logistics and customer support, Freshpet. “Focus is on the timely transfer to our customer distribution channels to maximize the freshness and shelf life of our products. We have set rigid standards with all segments of our cold chain through documented handling processes of our products, and we do temperature checks and utilize temperature recorders throughout the process to log statuses.”
Vital Essentials, a premium family pet food brand name dispersed by Green Bay, Wis.-based parent business Carnivore Meat Company that focuses on frozen and freeze-dried raw family pet food, snacks and treats, likewise takes temperature level control seriously. Key to its dedication to freshness is making use of cooled trailers and storage centers particularly created for cold food storage, in addition to constant temperature level tracking systems.
“Focus is on the timely transfer to our customer distribution channels to maximize the freshness and shelf life of our products,” said Dirk Martin, Freshpet.
“Vital Essentials is very intentional when it comes to controlling the cold chain and maintaining quality,” said Brian Lakari, vice president of operations, Carnivore Meat. “Our cold chain distribution process includes four main points of control: vendor processing, transportation, storage and our internal manufacturing. Cold food products are harvested and processed in USDA facilities having temperature controls capable of maintaining the required product temperature throughout the facility. The care we take shows in the finished products we provide to pet parents all over the world.”
Cold chain difficulties
When it concerns handling the cold chain, family pet food business should compete with a variety of difficulties. Some of the most typical problems consist of minimal provider capability, absence of cold storage facility space, and the logistical difficulties postured by quick development. However, with the best techniques in location, these challenges can be conquered.
“Like most companies over the last couple of years, we have dealt with the challenges of tight carrier capacity and limited cold warehouse space. We built long-term relationships with our supplier partners in both areas to ensure stable returns for them and safeguard sufficient supply chain capacity to fulfill our customer expectations,” Martin said.
Freshpet uses a complete series of fresh family pet food products that all should be kept cooled prior to and after purchase.
| Source: Freshpet
Lakari included, “Vital Essentials continues to grow at a record pace, and this can introduce new challenges, such as the availability of frozen cold storage warehousing. We have been successful in addressing this challenge for years, by building our own freezer warehousing. We currently own three sizable frozen warehouses. Two are attached to our manufacturing facilities and another is stand-alone. We are currently constructing a fourth frozen warehouse, which will be located inside our brand new 235,000-square-foot state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Green Bay. We believe that owning and managing our own facilities allows us to control all aspects of not only the cold supply chain but also the entirety of the manufacturing processes.”
Incremental enhancements
Pet food mill are likewise taking actions to more enhance the performance and safety of their cold chains. Whether it be through innovation upgrades or little procedure modifications, these enhancements help guarantee that family pet owners receive the best, most healthy items available.
“We continuously monitor cold chain technology in an effort to identify opportunities and invest in technologies that enhance our ability to ensure food safety and effectively provide value for our clients,” Lakari said. “In recent years, we made a substantial financial investment in ERP [enterprise resource planning] and storage facility management systems, together with hi-tech RFID [radio frequency identification] systems, which improves our capability to securely and properly handle temperature-sensitive food. We have actually just recently bought ingenious product packaging options that have actually supplied higher temperature level control.
The boost in the variety of fresh and frozen family pet food brand names contributes to the cold chain circulation difficulties pet food mill deal with. | Source: ©KOKLIANG1981 – STOCK.ADOBE.COM
“Going forward, we will be implementing robotic technology as part of our brand-new manufacturing facility, due to be completed in Q4 of 2023. This technology will provide more efficient transfer and storage of cold food products,” he included.
Freshpet has actually likewise taken proactive actions to enhance functional performance. These efforts consist of carrying out brand-new options to benchmark its freight and updating its transport management systems. The resulting modifications effect both the business’s internal procedures and its customer support.
“We have recently implemented a few new solutions to assist in benchmarking our freight and partnering with our 3PLs [third-party logistics] for a dynamic pricing solution to control freight costs in line with market changes,” Martin said. “We are also building out transportation management solutions to improve our load control, tracking and communication of shipment statuses to our customers.”
Fresh collaborations
Partnering with the best third-party logistics suppliers can make all the distinction for family pet food mill that require to keep the stability of their cold chain. By leveraging their knowledge, business like Vital Essentials and Freshpet have the ability to guarantee that their items are provided securely and on time.
“We are partnering with the largest cold chain warehouser and a couple of the top logistics 3PLs for the daily storage and distribution of our products,” Martin said. “Our warehouse partnership allows us a footprint close to our manufacturing, as well as key distribution locations close to our markets and transportation lanes. It allows us to shorten our lead time to customers and increase our inventory turns. The partnership with our 3PLs also has allowed us speed to market with broader access to carrier options.”
Carnivore Meat Company began on its brand-new 235,000-square-foot head office and production center last August. The brand-new center will produce its flagship freeze-dried family pet food brand name, Vital Essentials.
| Source: Schuh Construction Inc.Lakari likewise worried the significance of such collaborations, keeping in mind that Vital Essential’s collaboration with D&G Transportation has actually permitted them to broaden the business’s supply chain abilities.
When picking a third-party logistics supplier, it is vital that family pet food business completely veterinarian the partner’s abilities and services. Ensuring food safety is crucial, so suppliers should comprehend cold chain difficulties at hand and have the needed abilities to fulfill safety requirements.
“Cold food products are transported via refrigerated trailers equipped with continuous automated temperature monitoring systems and they are stored in warehousing facilities designed specifically for cold food product storage, also equipped with continuous temperature monitoring systems,” Lakari explained. “This is imperative, not only for the purpose of maintaining meat quality, but to comply with the strict standards of GFSI Certification, under FSSC 22000. GFSI is voluntary food quality and safety accreditation that Vital Essentials has very successfully undertaken since 2015. Carnivore Meat has implemented preventive controls to ensure required product temperatures are maintained throughout the cold chain. Our cold chain service providers are evaluated and continuously monitored to ensure effective controls are in place, while internal preventive controls have been established to verify required temperatures are maintained while cold food products are in our control.”
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