One of the things that shocked us most when we began manufacturing pet food was the number of dirty little secrets in the pet food industry. One of the biggest is “Regrind.”

Most pet food kibble is made using an extruder. An extruder is a fancy pressure cooker designed to quickly cook pet food and force it out a die (size / shape of kibble). When a manufacturer begins a new recipe it takes some “tweaking” to dial in the extruder to the proper pressure, moisture, flow, etc. It may produce from 2,000 to 4,000 pounds of food which doesn’t meet the manufacturer’s specifications. It may be too moist, incorrect consistency, too dry, not cooked enough, over cooked, etc. Any number of problems can exist while the operations staff dial in the extruder.

So what do you think happens to this food that isn’t “right?”

The majority of pet food manufacturers will wheel this “stuff” back around to the mixing room and “regrind” it into a flour consistency and add it into the next run of food.

The problem with that is the next run of food is most likely a different recipe – what if your dog has an allergy? They may be regrinding lamb and putting it into a venison recipe. I know of one dog food manufacturer whose chicken & rice recipe was DNA tested and indicated lamb DNA in the food.

And the worst part – manufacturers actually brag to each other about the percentage of regrind they use. They can use upwards of 15% of the next recipe being “regrind” from a rejected batch of food. They use this regrind as a way to reduce cost. Why throw something that is “not right” away when you can grind it up and use it in the next batch of food.

Don’t bother looking for this on their bags either. You aren’t going to find it…. Shhhhh!

Now let’s look at this logically. Once you cook food, you degrade it’s nutritional value. So if I regrind it and cook it again – do you think there is a lot of nutritional value left? Nope – now it’s just filler.

If you want to see a real fancy dance, ask your pet food manufacturer if they use any regrind in their manufacturing. My guess is after a lot of hemming and hawing you are going to get a vague non-answer. It seems like such a simple question too. Ask them what they do with product produced out of standard variance.

We were faced with this dilemma when we started manufacturing, and we decided  Tuscan Natural will NEVER USE REGRIND. When asked if we wanted to regrind our food that wasn’t just right, we responded “why would we want to do that? It’s filler, it’s no good – sell it to a pig farmer.” By the way, it makes great pig food. So with Tuscan Natural, you never have to worry about what is in your pet’s food.

We want to keep your pet healthy for life’s everyday adventures – Life is out there!