Manhattan, KS - Just as people work to include healthy foods in their diets, pet food formulators are also tasked with making nutritionally sound products.
In order to address this training need, professionals in the pet food industry are invited to attend Kansas State University’s IGP Institute Pet Food Formulation for Commercial Production course, utilizing classroom and hands-on training to apply during formulation.
This course is planned for January 13-17, 2020.
“If the participants understand the context, processes, regulations, and nutrition when they get into pet food formulation they will better know why and how we need to assemble those ingredients to create nutritionally complete products,” says Greg Aldrich, research associate professor in the Department of Grain Sciences and Industry.
Participants can expect to cover numerous topics including understanding ingredients, processes, and software necessary to create new products; revising existing formulas; perform business and production analysis; gaining an understanding of the raw ingredients used to produce pet foods; fundamental principles of companion animal nutrition and dietary needs and learning the processes involved with producing pet foods.
“The biggest thing for participants to walk away with is confidence in their ability to properly formulate a diet that can be produced under the equipment and format that they want to use,” Aldrich says.
Past Participant Christine Warzecha, specialty species technical specialist for Diamond V Mills, in Denver, Colorado, believes that the course gave her a better understanding of what formulators and nutritionists are looking for in a product.
“It was a really relaxed environment, which allowed me to have a collaborate effort when talking to people and asking questions.
"I was able to gather more from that because of the hands-on labs, the PowerPoint reviews and also having Dr. Aldrich there to help us walk though that process,” Warzecha says.
In addition to feed manufacturing and grain quality management, the IGP Institute also offers courses in the areas of flour milling and grain processing, and grain marketing and risk management.
For more information, please contact Lisa Moser at lmoser@ksu.edu