Pet Snacks
Nowadays, much of the attention of the pet food industry is focused on the production of pet treats and semi-moist pet snacks. These pet snacks are fashionable products with high quality standards in taste and overall quality, and presentation. Therefore, constant innovation is essential. Our experience and expertise here at Extrufood will simply help you to excel in this market. Our proficiency regarding forming dies is a key factor here.
Our Diemix®, (co-)extrusion dies, and our rotary dies provides our clients with endless possibilities when manufacturing these unique, quality products. Furthermore, the entire process is undertaken in the most economical and natural way possible. Additionally, Extrufood manufactures cooking extruders, forming extruders, guillotine cutters, and miscellaneous equipment required to enable the most efficient pet snack production process possible.
Extruders for the Pet Snack Industry
Extrufood has been an expert in the field of extrusion and co-extrusion for many years. A staple of our company, cooking extrusion is the foundation for the continuous production of pet snacks. A major advantage of extrusion is a more homogeneous and consistent cooking process, which leads to a final product of a high and consistent quality. Extrufood manufactures two types of the highest quality extruders for the pet snack industry:
- Cooking extruders which combine cooking and mixing of all the ingredients
- Forming extruders which are specifically designed to build up sufficient pressure for co-extrusion
Diemixes® for the Pet Snack Industry
The unique Extrufood Diemix® enables the production of multi-colored pet snacks while using just one extruder. The Diemix® splits the mass coming from the extruder into individual, equal streams. The desired colors and/or flavors are blended into each of the individual flows. Then, A dynamic mixing stage assures a homogeneous mix of each flow. A Dosing Skid can be fitted to the Diemix® to ensure accurate dosage of each color and flavor.
The Diemix® has a compact design, can be adapted to many different mass types, and is easily accessible for maintenance. Furthermore, our Diemix® can be fitted into your production system with minimal modification. Lastly, all our Extrufood extruder types support the addition of a Diemix®.
Dies for the Pet Snack Industry
Extrufood excels in manufacturing dies for the pet snack industry. Amongst these are our well known dies for belts, jerky strips, strands, and ropes for single or multi-colored extruded products, which can all be produced as solid, hollow, or filled.
The rotary die can give a product a new and different look: by varying the speed of the rotation, great variations and unique looks can be obtained. Filled products can be created by combining a co-extrusion die with a second extruder. Combining all these possibilities will allow you to produce semi-moist pet snacks in a very efficient way with almost endless possibilities regarding combinations in color, shape, and texture, as well as twisted, non-twisted, filled, solid, or hollow products.
Cooling Tunnels for the Pet Snack Industry
Extrufood manufactures various (single and multiple deck/tier) cooling tunnels that cool and condition the extruded product to room temperature in the most efficient manner. With continuous extrusion production lines, it is very important that the product is conditioned to room temperature so cutting and packing can be part of the continuous production process.
The multi-tier cooling tunnels are fitted with a retractable infeed belt which allows the cooling tunnel to be used as a single tier cooling tunnel as well. This feature also allows products with a high filling ratio of 30/70 (30% outside and 70% filling) to be produced on the same line without having to make drastic changes to the line set-up. The infeed belt on the Extrufood cooling tunnel can simply be moved up or down. All Extrufood cooling tunnels are tailor made to customer specifications.
Cutters for the Pet Snack Industry
Our cutting systems have been specifically designed to meet the requirements of modern pet snack manufacturing lines and differ fundamentally from traditional designs. The characteristic features of our modern design include their unparalleled reliability, ease of cleaning and maintenance, and extremely accurate cutting. Because all our cutting machines feature knife travel which is synchronised with the belt speed, they ensure a clean and vertical cut. Its perfect balance enables it to reach cutting speeds of up to 500 per minute.
Furthermore, It features multiple axis control, which guarantees a high level of flexibility and ease of operation regardless of product length.
Depending on the required cutting speed and the width of the guillotine cutter, Extrufood offers various models. Some of these can be equipped with an ultrasonic device. This is by far the best solution for very sticky products. However, adding an ultrasonic device to a guillotine cutter will limit the maximum amount of cuts per minute.
Lab extruders for the Pet Snack Industry
Extrufood not only manufactures a range of production extruders, but also produces a lab sized cooking and forming extruder. These extruders are ideal for testing new recipes for the development of new products. Both Extrufood lab extruders are scaled-down versions of our production extruders. Products and recipes extruded on either will be indistinguishable.
Using an Extrufood lab extruder as part of your R&D department will give you all the flexibility and possibilities needed to improve both existing as well as new recipes and products, without loss of any production capacity on your production lines.
The low capacity of up to 15 kg/hr for the lab cooking extruder and up to 50 kg/hr for the lab forming extruder, allows you to work with small batches and saves large amounts of slurry for testing. Due to the relatively low volume of material, this method enables you to perform many tests in one run.