Multicomponent food product and methods of making and using the same

Abstract

A dual texture pet or animal food product having inner and outer components. The soft inner component contains a mixture of lipid and solid ingredients and has a water activity, aw, less than about 0.65 and a total moisture content less than about 15 wt %. The outer component is a cereal based shell containing at least one ingredient comprising a carbohydrate, fat, protein or combination thereof, the shell component having a total moisture content less than about 20 wt %. The shell component completely surrounds the soft inner component and is formed by the co-extrusion of the soft inner component within the shell component to form one dual component pet or animal food product.

Description

[0001] This application is a continuation of co-pending application Ser. No. 09 / 945,994 which is a continuation of U.S. Pat. No. 6,312,746 issued Nov. 6, 2001, which is a continuation of U.S. Pat. No. 6,254,910 issued Jul. 3, 2001, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. Pat. No. 6,117,477 issued Sep. 12, 2000.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] This invention relates to food products and, more particularly, to multicomponent dry pet or animal food products that significantly improve palatability. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] Semi-moist edible products are known in the art. Such products, for example, include those made by adding a water based soft component to a dry component. The water based component is typically stabilized using a variety of gelling agents, sugars, salts, glycols, and / or by using heat. [0004] U.S. Pat. No. 4,190,679 describes a dual-textured pet food containing a soft moist meaty portion containing 5-25% moisture with a water activity of 0.5-0.90. U.S. Pat. No. ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0014] The present invention provides a shelf-stable multicomponent food product having improved palatability and methods of making and using the same. The shelf-stable multicomponent pet or animal food product of the present invention can function as a delivery system for process unstable or sensitive ingredients. The delivery system is a dual texture food product having a first component containing a mixture of lipid and solid ingredients forming a cream textured matrix, in which the first component is formed without an aqueous phase and a total moisture content less than about 15 wt %. The first component includes a process unstable or sensitive ingredient. A second component contains at least one ingredient comprising a carbohydrate, fat, protein or combination thereof, the second component has a total moisture content less than about 20 wt %. The second component completely surrounds the cream-textured matrix of the first component whereby maintaining the viability of the process unstable or sensitive ingredient. The food product delivery system is formed by the co-extrusion of the first component within the second component to form one dual component extrudate.

[0016] The combination of the two components and textures provides an advantageous increase in palatability over the same compositional ingredients made into a mono-component product. Thus, surprisingly, the present invention provides a significant improvement in palatability by having a softer lipid based center surrounded by harder shell material.

[0017] Furthermore, the present invention allows the use of simple packaging techniques because, by the lipid inner matrix being surrounded by the cereal based shell, the lipid material is surprisingly protected from wicking through the shell. Accordingly, there is no wicking of lipids onto the packaging material for the dual component product of the present invention. Typically, high lipid content dry pet or animal foods wick onto packaging material thereby causing undesirable grease stains. The fact that the lipids are concentrated in the inner matrix and are surrounded by an outer shell component allows for the inner matrix to have a higher lipid content without wicking, than an unprotected lipid material of the prior art. Thus, the present invention provides a food component having a desirably high lipid concentration, yet still using simple packaging techniques, without any need for the specialized and costly packaging techniques usually associated with high lipid content products.

Problems solved by technology

Typically, high lipid content dry pet or animal foods wick onto packaging material thereby causing undesirable grease stains.