Pet Food
Water can make or break a pet food. There are lots of reasons a pet food can "break": it can go soft when it's supposed to be crunchy, it can mold during storage, vitamins in a fortified mix can disappear over time, multi-component "kibbles" and "bits" can stick together when they exchange water. What do all these problems have in common? Water activity is the key to solving each of them.
Just Moisture
Many pet food makers have learned through trial and error what moisture levels are ok for their products. If that's true for you, no worries. The newest AquaLab can give you both % moisture and water activity on a single sample in about 5 minutes.
See a 5 minute video about how this works >>
Complexity Simplified
When trying to understand complex, multi-component products, sometimes moisture content alone isn't enough. For example, when different components are mixed in a bag, they soon begin exchanging moisture. Product texure and stability can suffer as a result. How do you know if moisture migration will happen? If two or more components have different water activity values, water wil move from higher water activity to lower water activity areas until the water activity of all components is the same. Note that water activity is the only measurement that can predict whether this will happen - moisture content can't.
Learn how water activity controls moisture migration >>
Stop Mold
Mold is another potential quality pitfall. Most pet food is expected to be shelf stable at room temperature, which can allow mold to grow. Mold is easy to control with water activity - in most cases, if your product is below 0.70 aw, your product won't mold no matter how long it sits on the shelf.
Read a chart to find your product's exposure to mold growth >>
Bulk Up
Many pet owners want superfoods for their dog or cat - fortified products that make their pet leaner, healthier, or smarter, with better smelling breath. One problem: vitamins that are put into a forumation at the factory can degrade over time, making the amount the pet actually gets rather small. Water activity measures energy, meaning it affects these degradative reactions. Reducing your product's exposure to vitamin degradation is just another use of water activity.
Learn how to develop a vitamin degradation/water activity graph for your specific product. >>
Easy Accuracy
Many quality control instruments are only useful in the lab - they're either too complicated or delicate to use anywhere else. AquaLab is different. It gives you +/-0.003 aw accuracy no matter where you are. The instrument is solid and easy to use, and doesn't require any special training or sample preparation. Water activity is as easy to measure on the factory floor as it is in the lab.