Pet Food Industry Color Standards

Pet owners want the best for their companion animals to help them live long, happy, and healthy lives. As the nutritional basis these animals need, pet food is instrumental to that goal. Standardizing color measurement helps pet food manufacturers ensure their products consistently fall within allowable tolerances to support the creation of high-quality ingredients, treats, and foods that are safe for pets.

An Overview of Color Standards for Pet Food

Modern pet food manufacturing often introduces color additives to make the products more visually appealing to pet owners, who correlate color with quality and nutrition. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) governs and enforces certification and color standards for additives, and costly penalties can apply for noncompliance.

The Association of American Feed Control Officers (AAFCO) also sets industry color standards for pet food safety and quality. The nonprofit works closely with both federal and state regulators to design legislation, review ingredients, establish grading requirements, and more. AAFCO also issues its own certifications for color additives, including AAFCO-natural and AAFCO-compliant.

How to Ensure Your Pet Food Meets the Industry's Color Standards

Spectrophotometers are the ultimate solution for accurate, objective pet food color measurement. These devices quickly capture and quantify color and spectral data, empowering your business to eliminate error-prone methods like visual comparisons and older technology.

HunterLab's ColorFlex EZ is a compact benchtop model that delivers pass/fail readouts through directional geometry that mimics how human eyes perceive color. It's an exceptionally versatile device, capable of scientifically measuring opaque liquids, solids, and pellets with easy, one-touch operation. Store up to 250 different standards and tolerances and up to 2,000 measurements, and connect it to a PC or printer to export and document outcomes.

Aeros is our most complete spectrophotometer for the pet food industry and the market's only smart, non-contact solution. We've developed it specifically for speed and accuracy in measuring the color of nonuniform substrates like pet foods. Aeros offers the largest, fastest sample measurement area available, capturing data across 27.5 square inches in 5 seconds. Measure foods in their natural state with Aeros — it automatically senses and adjusts to sample height, reducing setup complexity and contamination potential. The user-friendly design and intelligent embedded software further improve efficiency.

Improve Your Quality Assurance With HunterLab

HunterLab has been synonymous with expertise in color measurement science for over 70 years. We manufacture the most advanced and accurate spectrophotometric solutions available to support product quality, safety, and aesthetics.

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