How Working in Pet Food Development Made Me Better at My Job

I had to learn how to use a sieve, ruler, and a white tray

This was in a company that produced ingredients such as seasonings, flavorings, and coatings. I was working in a small development lab, and it involved wearing a pristine white lab coat. Perhaps the first time I felt like a proper food scientist outside of college. The area they wanted me to work in was in the novel proteins team. I didn’t have a clue what that would involve.

They showed me to a cupboard filled with a mixture of different shapes and sizes of pet food cans. My job would be to analyze and record the data in a table. The first smelly task involved opening a can and weighing the contents. I placed the contents into a sieve and I turned on a tap and the water washed away the finer meat particles to leave the larger solid pieces of ‘meat’.

I spread these remains across a large white tray, organized the pieces according to size and shape and, using a micrometer, measured and weighed them all. Once done, I entered the information into a spreadsheet and it would calculate the percentages of the solid pieces. This was my first ‘washout’, a term used in new product development.

We applied the different-piece size measurements and used this to create a product specification. By defining the size and shape of the ingredients, it can help define the final product parameters and quality. The new formula would be an improvement over what was already on the market.

Conducting a ‘washout’ is performed regularly in NPD and every development role I have had since. The data gathered is useful when competitors change and reformulate products. You have a historical record of the changes that were made in order to adapt your products.

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