Patent Application
20090304897
The present disclosure is broadly concerned with a process for manufacturing soft chew, peel apart pet treats. More particularly, it is concerned with a process for manufacturing pet treats for dogs and cats which have an appearance and texture similar to string cheese.
Pet treats are generally cheesy and/or meaty bite size biscuits, puffs, or chunks that may be formulated to have hard and crunchy or soft and chewy consistencies. In addition to classic bone and fish-shaped dog and cat biscuits, the pet food industry produces pet treats in a variety of specialty formulations such as “gourmet” and “natural organic” products. Dog treats in particular have been formulated to simulate many human snacks such as bacon strips, jerky sticks, popcorn, cookies, bagels, brownies, and pretzels. String cheese is a popular human snack having a generally cylindrical shape. It can be eaten by pulling individual strips of cheese from the cylinder along its length. It would be desirable to produce similar peel apart chewy treats for pets such as dogs and cats.
There are a number of examples of peel-apart or peelable human food products presently available to consumers. These products include the popular string cheese product which is also disclosed in by Abler et. al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,792,497 which describes a method and apparatus for making a particular twisted variant of string cheese product. Another exemplary peel-apart human food product is Twizzlers Pull-n-peel made by The Hershey Company, about which more information can be found at www.hersheys.com/products/details/twizzler/index.asp?name=PullNPeel.
Pet owners often wish to feed their pets treats that have a similar form to those that they eat themselves. Presently, there is absent in the art a pull-apart treat for pets which mimics the afore-mentioned human food products.
The present disclosure provides a greatly improved process for manufacturing pet treats that can be peeled apart to produce individual strips of treat material while keeping the remaining strips together in a bundle for protection from drying and flaking.
Various objects and advantages of this process and the resultant pet treats will become apparent from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings wherein are set forth, by way of illustration and example, certain embodiments.
The drawings constitute a part of this specification, including exemplary embodiments of the manufacturing process and pet treats, and illustrate various objects and features thereof.
As required, detailed embodiments of the process for manufacturing peel apart pet treats are disclosed herein; however, it is to be understood that the disclosed embodiments are merely exemplary of the process and the treats, which may be embodied in various forms. Therefore, specific structural and functional details disclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but merely as a basis for the claims and as a representative basis for teaching one skilled in the art to variously employ the apparatus in virtually any appropriately detailed structure.
Referring now to the drawing figures, the subject peel-apart pet treat 1 is illustrated in
The primary and secondary dry ingredients 4 and 5 may be transferred into the manufacturing plant from the storage bins via a pneumatic conveying system or any other suitable method. A predetermined quantity of each of the primary dry ingredients is conveyed to a hopper, which is located on or equipped with a scale for weighing the primary dry material 4.
The weighed material is then discharged into a mixer 6 where the material is next mixed. While in the mixer 6, predetermined quantities of each of the secondary dry ingredients 5 are conveyed, either pneumatically or by other suitable means, to the mixer 6, and blended with the primary ingredients 4. At the conclusion of the mixing cycle, the blended dry ingredients are transferred via a pneumatic conveying system or other suitable means to the cooker extrusion system.
The cooker extrusion system includes a feed bin and feeder 7, conditioner 8, and a cooker/extruder 9. The dry material is held in the feed bin, which acts a surge for the cooker extrusion system. From the feed bin, the mixed dry material is metered into the conditioner 8 via the feeder 7. The feeder 7 is arranged on a variable speed system in order to control the mass flow of the material into (and out of) the cooker extruder system. The conditioner 8 is a twin shaft, continuous mixer.
A quantity of liquid slurry 10 is provided for mixing with the dry ingredients. The slurry 10 includes a mixture of corn syrup, chicken meat, water, propylene glycol, glycerin, phosphoric acid, cheese flavor, and poultry fat. The slurry 10 is prepared in a mixing tank, where the temperature is maintained at about 140° F. The slurry 10 is metered from the slurry tank into the conditioner 8 via a pump and flow meter system.
In the conditioner 8, the dry material, and the slurry 10 are mixed together. Saturated steam 11 is injected into the conditioner 8 to start the cooking process.
Preselected quantities of other ingredients may be added to the material in the conditioner 8, including, for example, quantities of dye, water, fat, and combinations thereof. The fat may be provided, for example, in the form of an oil, such as canola oil. The temperature of the material exiting the conditioner 8 may be controlled by the quantity of steam 11 added to the conditioner 8. In this application, the temperature of the product at the discharge of the conditioner 8 is about 212° F.
In the next step, the material discharged from the conditioner 8 enters the barrel of the cooker/extruder 9. An exemplary cooker/extruder 9 is available from Extru-Tech, Incl, Model E525, some specifications for which are available at www.extru-techinc.com. The exemplary cooker/extruder 9 is a high speed screw conveyor designed to tranform electrical energy into mechanical energy. The extruder screw configuration may be altered, depending on process requirements. The cooker/extruder 9 includes a die plate adjacent to the exit port that restricts the flow of extrudate. Such restriction causes the pressure of the material inside the extruder to increase. One exemplary die plate includes 5 extruder inserts, with each insert having 16 openings, each opening having a diameter of 3.2 mm. Since the material is heated in the cooker/extruder to at least about 212° F., the boiling point of water, and the material contains a certain quantity of water, and the material is pressurized to above atmospheric pressure within the cooker/extruder, the homogenous extrudate in the cooker/extruder will expand as it exits through the cooker/extruder die as the super-heated water in the extrudate flashes to steam and water vapor at the cooker/extruder exit.
The cooked or semi-cooked product exits the extruder die via the previously mentioned extruder inserts. The multiplicity of extrudate streams formed from each insert facilitates reduction of the product mass to enable flash-off of the maximum quantity of water vapor. However, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the extruder exit die may include a greater or lesser number of apertures to accomplish water vapor flash off and cooling of the cooked or partially cooked extrudate.
The streams of extrudate fall onto a conveyor belt 12 where they are exposed to atmospheric pressure and ambient temperature. The product is next permitted to cool on the conveyor belt 12 until it reaches a temperature below 212° F. or the boiling point of water.
The belt conveyor 12 next transports the partially cooked product to the feed port of the product densification unit 13. An exemplary product densification unit is available from Extru-Tech Inc., Model E750, some specifications for which are available at www.extru-techinc.com. The product densification unit 13 is an extrusion device having a low speed, larger diameter extruder barrel. This apparatus is designed for low shear operation, whereby minimal mechanical energy will be transmitted to the extrudate. If the product temperature in the product densification unit is maintained below about 212° F., expansion at the exit port die plate attributable to water vapor flash will be minimized.
The product densification unit includes a die plate 14 (illustrated in 3) having two dividing extrusion die inserts 15 (also further illustrated in
The ropes are transferred continuously to a cutting mechanism 17 which cuts them into treats 1 having a predetermined length, such as, for example, about 3 inches. Following cutting the treats are cooled in a two pass belt cooler and boxed for finished packaging.
While the peel-apart pet treat 1 product may present a generally cylindrical appearance, the cylindrical shape contains conjoined individual strands 3 and these individual strands 3 may be peeled off one by one by a user starting from either end of the compressed bundle 2 of conjoined strands 3 of the peel-apart pet treat 1 for providing a treat to a pet as desired. Advantageously, the remaining unpeeled strands remain conjoined in a compressed bundle 2 and are thereby protected from drying and flaking and provide the user with the additional experience of removing additional individual strands 3 from the compressed bundle of conjoined strands 2.
The preferred embodiment of the present invention is further expressed by the following example.
Dry ingredients were prepared by mixing the following ingredients in the ratios indicated below:
It is to be understood that while certain forms of the peel-apart pet treat have been illustrated and described herein, it is not to be limited to the specific forms or arrangement of parts described and shown.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61016260 | Dec 2007 | US |
