PET Food Processing - September 2020 - 19

"We are
very good
at taking
on projects
that others
deem too
small or not
worth the
effort."
Wade Willming,
Kansas City Treats

criteria. The use of both in-house and third-party testing allows Kansas City Treats to meet the different quality requirements specific to each customer. For added
assurance, the company also employs Safeline metal
detectors and x-ray inspection systems from Mettler
Toledo, Columbus, Ohio.

On-trend

Fortunately for Kansas City Treats, dog owners seem
to be increasingly concerned about their pets' dental
health. Pointz said the market for dental and long-lasting chews has been growing steadily for the past six to
seven years and is expected to be a $1 billion segment
in 2020. Dental chews rely, in part, on mechanical abrasion to deliver the desired benefit to the pet. Pointz said
the key to this is through proper formulation and the
skills of the extruder operator.
"With all of our automation, the human element
is still the magic ingredient to get the product right,"
Pointz said. "The extruder operators are the Wizard of
Oz behind the curtain."
The company works closely with a team of independent formulators with specific hot extrusion experience.
The fine-tuning of a recipe and the proper processing
parameters makes the difference between a long-lasting
chew that is effective versus one that is either too soft
and doesn't deliver the abrasion benefits, or one that is
too hard and can't be consumed by the pet.
The wide range of ingredients required for today's pet
products to meet defined brand claims makes delivering a dental chew especially challenging. Kansas City
Treats relies heavily on Fairview Mills to provide the
majority of batch ingredients in premix format in the
correct grind depending on the product requirements.
Kansas City Treats has eight silos, each with the capacity to hold three truckloads of pre-mixed ingredients.
The company adds novel ingredients, small-quantity or
high-cost ingredients by hand before the final blending

of each batch in a Wenger mixing system. The average
batch size for Kansas City Treats is 2,000 lbs. All finished products are cooled to ambient temperature and
stored in holding bins prior to packaging.
Other popular products right now for the co-manufacturer include cat treats. Pointz said the company
has been producing a lot of 3-ounce packages for felines lately. Additionally, kibble customers often turn to
Kansas City Treats because the company will run smaller volumes, making Kansas City Treats a good place to
start for brands entering the kibble market.
Similar to many processors currently, Kansas City
Treats is hesitant to produce products containing CBD
and is waiting on the regulatory piece to catch up with
consumer interest. The company also works primarily
with dry meat ingredients - no fresh meat - although
some formulas include PRO TEMP from Simmons
Animal Nutrition, Siloam Springs, Ark., which is a
shelf-stable, pathogen-negative meat or vegetable blend.
Allowing no fresh meat in the Kansas City Treats facility greatly reduces the risk of introducing pathogens into
the processing environment.
Kansas City Treats sits on 11 acres and owns the adjacent 11 acres. With Pointz estimating that the company
is currently running at 50% capacity due to the efficiency gains from recent production investments, there is a
lot of room for the company to expand.
"Kansas City Treats strives to deliver a winning manufacturing solution for our partners in terms of quality, service and value," said Troy Kramer, principal at
Kansas City Treats. "Earning someone's trust to manufacture their brand offerings is no easy task and once we
have earned it, we intend to provide our very best each
time we produce their products."
By adding Kansas City Treat's product manufacturing capabilities to its repertoire, the future appears to
be long lasting for J-Six, a livestock, milling, ingredient,
trucking and now full-circle service company.
PFP

Kansas City Treats has a
total of eight packaging
lines and also supports customers with
secondary, retail-ready
packaging services.

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10/7/2020 2:53:54 PM

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PET Food Processing - September 2020

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