No manufacturer of dry pet food likes losing revenue by throwing away good product. And no buyer of dry pet food likes opening the bag to find that the contents look imperfect. Yet both of these disappointments can happen - and happen too often - when poor silo-management allows differing batches of kibbles to unintentionally get mixed-up.

Preventing foreign materials from reaching the end of the processing line is a battle that producers and renderers of pet food must fight on two fronts. On one front are the incoming raw materials, which almost always contain unwanted objects; on the other, the processing line itself, where unwanted materials can accidentally fall into the product mix. Some foreign materials are big and easy to see, some so small they’re almost invisible - but whatever their size and wherever they come from, all must be removed. No exceptions, no excuses.

As a large number of product recalls recently showed, plant-based ingredients in pet foods can hide a dangerous poison. The near-invisible threat is aflatoxin, one of the mycotoxins produced by certain molds (fungi) on plants such as corn, grain and tree nuts. When this slips into the food chain undetected, it can harm pets and pet food manufacturers’ reputations.

The processors of petfood ingredients are under pressure to raise product standards without also raising prices – and changing market demands mean that this challenge is unlikely to go away. But there are two important pieces of good news to counteract this.

Petfood processors will have to respond to significant new market trends. The desires and demands of petfood buyers are shifting, and this means that many petfood producers will change what they’re asking processors for. A quick look at the three biggest sales trends reveals why and how.

The far-reaching impact of Covid-19 has influenced the way that billions of people live and thousands of businesses function. It has been extraordinary to see how people of the world, despite all of our differences, have come together to fight the virus and support each other in this time of turmoil.