คุณภาพอาหารเม็ดสำหรับสัตว์เลี้ยง

การผลิตอาหารเม็ดสำหรับสัตว์เลี้ยงมักจะเข้าสู่กระบวนการทำให้แห้งก่อนนำไปใส่บรรจุภัณฑ์ อาหารสัตว์เลี้ยงที่มีความชื้นสูง สามารถส่งผลให้จุลินทรีย์/เชื้อราเจริญเติบโตภายในผลิตภัณฑ์ ส่งผลเสียต่ออายุการเก็บ หรือถ้าความชื้นต่ำเกินไป อาหารสัตว์เลี้ยงจะร่วนและสลายได้ในระหว่างการขนส่งได้

Assessing Incoming Ingredients
Challenge: Pet food producers are facing supply chain disruptions and rising costs, which may result in working with new suppliers or ingredients from different regions. The new variety of incoming ingredients can have significant variations in nutritional quality from batch to batch.

Measuring Moisture at the Drying Stage
Challenge: Pet food kibble typically enters a drying process after mixing. However, over time, machinery can change in performance, leading to batch-to-batch inconsistencies. If pet food is packaged with high moisture content, this can result in microbial/mold growth within the product, negatively impacting shelf life. Likewise, if moisture content is too low, pet food can be crumbly and break down during
transportation

Solution: Analyzing moisture before and after drying with a SpectraStar or a Process Sensors QuikCheck can help operators manage moisture content everywhere it’s needed. Rapid analysis allows operators to react quickly and adjust their dryer settings to ensure product quality, while indirectly improving their energy efficiency.

Managing Costs from Excessive Ingredient Spray Usage
Challenge: Just like the kibble drying machines, ingredient spray systems can also drift out of performance spec after repeated use. Ingredient sprays – such as fat-formulations that are commonly sprayed on kibble – are costly for pet food operations, and many companies have tightened their tolerance levels of certain parameters to save costs and keep quality at a high level.