PET Food Processing - October 2022 - 54

ASSOCIATIONS
PET FOOD
ALLIANCE
Bringing rendering and pet food
professionals together to benefit both.
" We are
here to
bring people
to the table
to find
answers to
problems. "
Jennifer Martin, PFA
In December 2017, roughly 85 rendering and pet
food industry leaders and academics gathered for
the first-ever Pet Food Alliance (PFA) meeting at
Colorado State University (CSU), Fort Collins, Colo.
Membership has since grown to more than 400 members,
with the shared goal of identifying and funding
collaborative research that advances these two closely
knit industries.
According to PFA leader Jennifer Martin, Ph.D., assistant
professor at CSU's Center for Meat Safety and
Quality in the Department of Animal Sciences, two
pivotal ideas led to the development of PFA: first, that
research should be guided by industry input to develop
implementable solutions, and secondly, all players
should be at the table.
" It makes sense that if we're going to conduct research
that benefits both the pet food and the rendering
industries, then we should bring everyone together
to discuss the challenges and opportunities and come
up with ideas that can be explored to generate solutions, "
Martin said.
PFA is a joint
initiative facilitated through CSU
and funded largely by the Fats and Protein Research
Foundation, which funds research that supports the
future of the rendering industry and its industry partners,
including pet food producers. David Meeker,
Ph.D., senior vice president of the North American
Renderers Association (NARA) and director of the Fats
and Proteins Research Foundation, has also played a significant
role in supporting PFA. Additionally, registration
fees for PFA's meetings go directly toward funding
research deemed most important by the alliance's three
working groups: Product Safety, Product Quality, and
Consumer Perception and Sustainability.
Currently, the Product Safety working group is
surveying industry members to assess current practices,
perceptions and impacts of foreign material in
pet food and rendered products. The Product Quality
working group continues to discuss methods for extracting
fat from protein to determine peroxide value
(PV) and is surveying industry stakeholders to determine
best practices and sample extraction methods
for this. The Consumer Perception working group
is looking into overlapping opportunities and challenges
related to ingredient sustainability. These three
priorities will guide the organization's future research
initiatives.
The alliance hosts annual Technical Meetings, during
which a handful of industry professionals present on
topics relevant to current research efforts, interspersed
with designated time for working groups to meet and
discuss priorities and next steps.
At the 2022 Technical Meeting, Martin and other
PFA members discussed opportunities to improve the
efficiency of the alliance, including fine-tuning communications,
stoking engagement within the academic
community, and updating PFA's meeting structure to
better suit the needs of its members and working groups.
Regardless, the core mission of PFA will remain the
same - supporting cross-industry collaboration and
exploring mutually beneficial opportunities in rendering
and pet food.
54 PET FOOD PROCESSING | October 2022 | www.petfoodprocessing.net
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PET Food Processing - October 2022

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