Safe Food for Your Pets

Dr. Richter is the founder and president of Richter International, Inc., Columbus, Ohio, a private contract research and consulting laboratory organization specializing in food quality, safety, and security/defense programs and services. He has more than 30 years of experience helping pet food manufacturers understand, develop, and implement food safety practices. He also has a “granddog,” Scarlet, a Boxer St. Bernard mix.

To enable manufacturers in their pursuit of providing safe, quality dry pet foods to their customers, Dr. Richter and his team, including Jessica Dyszel, PhD, offer a dynamic, common sense six-pack brimming with what he calls the essential best practices for controlling microbiological pet food safety.

Be the facility a retrofit of a vintage building that produced something entirely different in a previous life, or a dazzling new state-of- the-art architectural wonder, every pet food manufacturing environment is directly impacted by the details of facility design and the diet ingredients being used, Dr. Richter says.

Pretty much gone are the days when many ingredients for pet food manufacture came from the scraps other food plants were disposing of, and, not surprisingly, were of questionable microbiological quality, he points out.

“Now many of the new specialty pet diets, such as health-condition specific, grain-free, and protein-specific, include meat, vegetables, and other wholesome ingredients, all of which further diversify the overall microbiological challenges of pet food manufacturing,” Dr. Richter relates. “But even though the challenges faced by the pet food industry are wide-ranging, there are some constants every manufacturer will encounter. As a result, six key management practices are essential in any operation.”

1. Environments must be monitored. “In all facilities, environmental control means having an awareness of every aspect of the production environment,” Dr. Richter begins. “This includes equipment surfaces, water, air, and the materials moving in and out of the environment. When a team understands the microbiological level and types of microorganisms in these various environmental areas, potential problems can be more easily corrected before they negatively impact the finished product.”

Ideally, a microbiological sampling program includes product contact surfaces, with the samples being taken during production,” Dr. Richter continues. “In-process samples, fines, or equipment sponge swabs collected during production are a direct indication of the overall microbiological quality of the finished product.”

2. Ingredients must be monitored. Food manufacturers need to investigate and document all incoming ingredients, Dr. Richter says. “Vendors should be audited and microbiological specifications set for all ingredients,” he elaborates. “Each lot of ingredient should be tested by an agreed-upon independent laboratory using methods appropriate for the ingredient.”

The USDA Food Safety Inspection Service has compiled a guidance document outlining evaluation of the performance of pathogen detection diagnostics that can be used as a starting point for understanding the complexity of establishing a validation protocol, Dr. Richter notes.

3. Methods must be validated. All microbiological methods used in the testing of environmental samples, ingredients, or finished products should be validated,” Dr. Richter advises. “Validating a method means the method has been tested with that specific matrix and can successfully detect the target microorganisms at the level anticipated,” he explains. “The organisms used in a validation study should be prepared at a low level and in a manner that mimics the state in which they would likely be found in the matrix, such as dry injured, heat injured, refrigerated, or frozen.”

It is essential that both the testing laboratory and the food manufacturer quality assurance staff have an in-depth understanding of the validation methods and potential problems, he adds. “The number of replicates and matrices tested will be dependent on the unique ingredients in a formulation and the budgetary concerns of a company,” he notes.