That is such a loaded statement. What is ‘premium’ as applied to pet food ingredients? Are the shots of steak, seafoods and veggies one often sees in TV commercials showing the ingredients of the pet food considered to be the ‘premium’ ingredients? Yes. we’d say they were premium. In fact, they are so premium that most of us see such quality on our own kitchen tables only around major holidays. Whether they go into the actual pet foods we can’t say, but what our pets leave on the lawn doesn’t look premium in origin.
For us here at Dainichi Fish Food, what we consider to be premium has the following attributes.
Our ingredients can’t be cheap, aqua-culture type stuff. They have to be the best they can be. So the all-purpose, wholewheat flour and wheat germ are sourced from a bakery supply intended for human consumption. Each lot is tested to make sure there are no aflatoxins, the wheat germ is a golden, flaky and ultra-pure and not some second rate brown, waxy animal feed component.
Years ago, when we made a commitment to lower the process temperature in order to eliminate nutritional losses from extrusion process, we swapped the soy bean which needed the higher temperatures to denature the hemolitic properties associated with its higher content for an organic pea protein suited for human consumption. A win-win result. Well, except for the price, pea protein is massively more expensive but we are Dainichi, so quality before costs is our motto.
The rest of our ingredients are either organic or derivatives of for human-use foodstuff such as the wild-caught Alaskan white fish or the wild Antarctic krill oil production, both of which cannot be officially deemed organic as there is no human-controlled chain of custody in the rearing of these marine species but are assumed to be pure and organic in nature.
Our spirulina is of pure human consumption variety which is 6-7 times more costly than the Chinese origin product used in typical fish feed at commercial feed mills which produce 70%+ of the brands on the market. We regularly provide afiidavits to various state regulatory agencies stating that we do not use those imported products known for their high bacterial loads in any stage of our food production. We use ony domestic and clean spirulina algae in all of our foods.
In sum, Dainichi ‘premium’ is in a class of its own – ultra premium!
Unfortunately, there is a down-side to using this quality of ingredients, and that is the final cost of the product. We wish we didn’t have to charge a premium for our products but the reality is that that is what it takes to produce the food that can back up the claim of being the best. Both low and high quality ingredients go by the same name so almost all manufacturers choose the cheapest option to lower costs and increase profits. We go on record and vouch that all Dainichi/Inochi foods are produce entirely with only these ingredients that meet our ultra-premium category so our customers can rest assured that the food they purchase is second to none.
End.