Pet foods are commercially produced nutrition for pets and domestic animals. Many pet foods are produced from the by-products of the human food manufacturing industry.
Pet foods encompass a broad range of products from fresh, refrigerated products to moist or dry nuggets and canned ground foods or stews. They typically contain meats, vegetables, grains, vitamins and other ingredients. Hygienic positive displacement pumps are used throughout the process to transport the high solids content ingredients, the viscous liquid ingredients and the finished, blended products. They create large cavities to transport solids with minimal damage and develop high pressures to overcome high friction losses. They are easily cleaned to maintain hygiene and flow rate is easily controlled via variable speed drive to match process flows or to accurately meter or batch into mixing vessels.
To make nuggets, chopped or ground meat slurries and vegetable slurries are pumped or conveyed to a blending tank where all other ingredients are added. Viking hygienic pumps transport that viscous mixture to extruders where it is discharged onto conveyors and
transported to a cooking tunnel and then sliced into nuggets. Viking pumps may then spray fats and flavorings like molasses on the nuggets before final drying and packaging.
Fresh and canned pet foods are similarly blended and pumped to packaging prior to refrigeration or sterilization.