HOW DO WE TEST PALATABILITY IN OUR PRODUCTS?

Palatability = ability of a product to be consumed rapidly and heartily by the dog or the cat.

Palatability determines the level of spontaneous consumption by the animal.

• Real palatability is measured through the comparison towards another product.
• Perceived palatability is subjectively appreciated by the owner that observes his animal’s behaviour when faced to a single petfood.

Ways of development for improving palatability

All steps of the products manufacturing may have positive or negative consequences on the palatability:
• choice of the ingredients, quality controls
• way of cooking
• size, shape, and density of the product
• aromas, including the ir presentation (powder form, liquid form…)
• quality of the packaging…

Palatability tests in kennel / cattery

They require quite a lot of animals. For performing a test, Royal Canin uses at least 30 dogs and 35 cats. Dogs are gathered in groups of the same size, to take into account differences of consumption, due the breed size. The test is done within a day or two, depending on the type of test.

Animals have a free-access to 2 different products (proposed in larger quantities than really required), during 15 mn for dogs, 16 h for cats. By weighing refusals, we calculate the respective consumption of each product. The results are then statistically screened to study how much significant are the observed preferences.

Interpretation of the results

Ist method: statistical treatment is performed on the total respective consumption of A and B products. ex: product A / product B = 70 / 30: Very Highly Significative preference towards A (VHS test)

It means that 70 % of the consumed food was A product and 30 % was B product . We can conclude that the product A is much more palatable than the product B.

2nd method: here, no statistical test is applied. We just consider that there is a clear preference for A when a dog has eaten twice as more of the product A compared to product B (consumption ratio equal or superior to 67/33).. ex : product A / product B: 65 / 35 (VHS test)

It means that :
• the product Awas preferred by 65 % of the dogs
• the product B has been preferred by 20 % of the dogs
• 15 % of the dogs did not show any prefere nce.

It must be regularly performed thanks to :
• - blank tests (A = B)
• - provocation tests: A = coated product ; B = uncoated product
• - repetability tests during several consecutive days
• - tests in external panels
• - analysis of the lateral bias of the animals: by analyzing a large number of test results, we search to know whether the animal has got a tendancy to choose systematically the right or the left plate. (Maybe there is a dominant individual in the box besides ?) Absence of bias is confirmed by performing the same test again, but with changing the position of the plates.

Tests in consumers panels

They complete the tests in kennel / cattery because the allow us to evaluate the reactions of animals placed in various environment conditions.

The product is given to the owner in order he makes his animal try it. Following the test (of variable duration), a few qualitative questions are asked to the owner. Examples:

On the 1st day of distribution, the animal :

• _loves it
• _eats normally
• _hesitates
• _gets quickly tired of it
• _ doesn’t eat it…

Compared to the usual food, which food is eaten by the animal first? Which one would you say he really prefers?

• __usual food
• __new food

Conclusion

Royal Canin performs more than 1000 tests with dogs and over 350 tests with cats per year. The results show a good correlation between tests in kennel / cattery, and tests in consumer panels.

By multiplying the tests so, we have 3 main goals:
• constantly improving the palatability of the existing products
• launching products that much more palatable than competitor’s
• improving our knowledge of the factors that are responsible for a good palatability.

Donated by the Borg Cardona and Co. Ltd. visit Borg Cardona website