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Top 5 Questions Vets Have About Freshpet’s Nutrition & Quality
written by Freshpet Vet Team
Currently, over 14 million households feed Freshpet.
That’s about one in every six dog families feeding our fresh, cooked pet food that’s only preserved by refrigeration. There’s a good chance some of your patients are eating Freshpet, and we want you to have the facts at hand when you talk to your clients about our food.
While you may be more familiar with traditional pet food formats such as dry kibble and canned wet food, there is some confusion about fresh pet food, including misunderstandings we often hear from veterinarians about our Freshpet brand. Here, we’ve tried to clear up the 5 most common of these misunderstandings, so you have more facts to share with clients and can speak confidently with them about fresh pet nutrition.
CONCERN: Freshpet is a raw food product that might contain dangerous levels of bacteria.
FACT: All Freshpet food is fully cooked & pasteurized.
Freshpet is pasteurized with steam to kill microorganisms while maintaining optimal nutrients for dogs and cats, and then quickly cooled down. This steam-cooking process ensures vital nutrients are maintained while bacteria are eradicated through a pasteurization process. This proprietary technique also enables Freshpet to maintain texture for optimal palatability. All our meals undergo over 20 quality and safety tests within our in-house laboratories before leaving the kitchens.
CONCERN: Freshpet is a new, boutique, small company start-up that has no experience in large-scale pet food production.
FACT: Freshpet created the fresh category in the US in 2006 and is the largest fresh pet food company in the world.
Freshpet was the first manufacturer in the fresh pet food category in the U.S. We are a publicly-traded company with three manufacturing facilities in the U.S – that we own. All we do is fresh pet food, and we’ve been doing it for nearly twenty years. Freshpet is purchased by over 12 million households, we have a network of over 36,000 in-store refrigerators across many retailers that we own and maintain, and we sell products in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Europe.
CONCERN: Freshpet does not follow AAFCO standards and does not adhere to WSAVA guidelines.
FACT: Freshpet products meet all AAFCO standards and WSAVA guidelines.
Freshpet’s products are 100% complete and balanced nutrition. All of our products are chemically analyzed to ensure they conform with AAFCO’s minimum and maximum standards for canine and feline nutrition. (See Freshpet's AAFCO Feeding Trial affidavits here.) Freshpet performs feeding trials following AAFCO protocols. We also adhere to WSAVA global guidelines and best practices for manufacturers.
CONCERN: Freshpet does not have veterinary experts on staff and only relies on outside consultants.
FACT: Freshpet has a team of full-time PhDs, pet nutrition experts and veterinarians experts on staff.
Our recipes are rigorously formulated and approved by a collaborative team of experts, led by Dr. Gerardo Pérez-Camargo, one of Freshpet’s veterinarians who holds a PhD in Applied Biochemistry and Food Science. Dr. Gerardo has over 30 years of professional experience in veterinary nutrition, pet food product development, numerous peer-reviewed publications, and several pet food patents.
But we rely on a collaborative R&D team of experts in pet nutrition, microbiology, meat science, and food science. We also have the Freshpet Nutrition Council of board-certified veterinary nutritionists and academic researchers to oversee product design, product testing, and scientific research. And finally, pet food manufacturing experts are on staff ensuring each recipe is executed properly.
Learn more about Freshpet’s team of esteemed veterinary experts.
CONCERN: Freshpet causes obesity and other health issues.
FACT: Freshpet foods are tested, following AAFCO Maintenance protocols to ensure they are safe and nutritionally appropriate for healthy pets.
Freshpet is designed only for healthy pets. It is not intended for dogs that need therapeutic or prescription diets. Any underlying conditions may require a different nutritional plan with other more specialized diets.
Freshpet diets are mainly meat, so they have the same main nutritional component as meat—protein. In comparison, the main component of dry diet formulas are grains, so their main nutrient is carbohydrate. This difference in dry versus fresh does require proper transition at home and Freshpet should not be fed to dogs with fat absorption issues or other underlying GI problems.
However, our diets are much lower in calorie content than dry diets. Freshpet bags have half the energy density of dry pet food, and Freshpet rolls have one-third of the calories than dry on a kcal/kg basis. Our internal research shows that dogs fed dry diets have a significantly higher incidence of obesity than Freshpet-fed dogs.
Freshpet’s product range has both Grain-Free and Grain-Inclusive diets. We have performed long-term feeding studies on large-breed dogs fed Freshpet Grain-Free to ensure they maintain normal, healthy whole blood and plasma taurine levels. Freshpet, unlike dry, provides a protein-rich diet with high essential amino acid bioavailability (particularly methionine and cysteine).
Learn more about recommending Freshpet for specific dietary needs.
“Our message is simple,” says Dr. Gerardo Perez-Camargo, DVM, PhD. “Freshpet foods are developed by professional veterinarians, PhD nutritionists, microbiologists, and meat scientists with many decades of expertise in the pet food industry. All of our products are safely cooked and pasteurized with steam in our own manufacturing facilities. The diets are analyzed to ensure they are complete, balanced, and tested according to AAFCO protocols. This process is unique to making pet food and we have learned a lot over the last 18 years with several research projects published in peer-reviewed publications.”
