Kemin Nutrisurance debuts wet pet food pilot lab in USA
USA- Kemin Industries, a global manufacturer of a wide range of ingredients, recently unveiled its new Research and Exploration Services, a branch of its Kemin Nutrisurance division, which will be its first-ever wet pet food pilot plant.
This pilot lab is under the company’s pet food and rendering technologies business unit, and will be located at its global headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa.
Kemin employees, customers, and local guests were invited to tour the new pilot lab during the ribbon-cutting celebration on July 20, which will mimic the production of wet pet food in a smaller-scale plant environment.
Chris Nelson, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer, Kimberly Nelson, president of Kemin Nutrisurance, and Jason Shelton, Ph.D., vice president of research and development at Kemin Nutrisurance, addressed attendees and shared the mission of the new business unit and pilot lab facility.
“There is enormous potential still left in wet pet food — to understand a lot about the chemistry and how to improve this overall product,” Chris Nelson explained. “This facility allows us to test those new ideas for our customers.”
The state-of-the-art facility offers Kemin Nutrisurance the opportunity to work with current and existing customers to create, test and validate pet food and treats to help better predict large-scale results.
The pilot lab offers a dedicated space to develop wet pet food, as well as test dry kibble coatings. It features more production capacity and testing capabilities than most R&D labs, but its smaller-scale plant environment provides more flexibility to produce smaller batches and adjust formulations during the process.
The opening of the pilot lab served as a platform to introduce customers to Kemin’s advancement in its R&D offerings under the new Research and Explorations Services umbrella.
“This is really a celebration of our formalization and the elevation of our service in R&D,” Kimberly Nelson said during the ribbon cutting.
She added that the Services platform has been critical to the company’s success for years, but bringing research and exploration as an element to it formally is the next step in Kemin’s commitment to its customers.
“With Research and Exploration Services, we are able to elevate our own R&D efforts, building on Kemin’s legacy of market-leading solutions and helping customers test, create and validate pet food products with unmatched accuracy and efficiency,” Shelton added. “Now, with our expanded customer-service offerings, Kemin Nutrisurance delivers the industry’s most comprehensive approach to R&D.”
According to the company, Kemin Nutrisurance’s Research and Explorations Services will expand beyond the United States with pilot labs and innovation centers in Brazil, Italy, and China.
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