Pâté, chunks in gravy, stews, broths and toppers built for texture, gravy stability and commercial sterility — from bench to pouch, tray and can.
Wet pet food must be commercially sterile, look appealing in the bowl and still deliver its nutrients after a demanding heat process. Texture, gravy stability and heat-sensitive nutrients such as thiamin all depend on how the recipe and the retort process work together.
We develop pâtés, chunks in gravy, stews, broths and toppers for pouches, trays and cans, and prove each recipe in pilot retort batches through Guires Manufacturing, with nutrient and stability testing before transfer.
Start your project with Guires PNLEvery format starts from the species, the life stage and the nutritional objective.
Smooth and textured pâtés with stable emulsions and clean slicing.
Chunk integrity, gravy viscosity and the chunk-to-gravy ratio designed together.
Complete and balanced recipes for dogs and cats, formulated on an energy basis.
Complementary hydration and topper formats for added appeal and moisture.
Urinary, weight and senior concepts where moisture is part of the benefit.
Recipes matched to the pack and its heat-penetration behaviour.
Every recipe and pack size needs a validated thermal process; changing the pack or fill changes the process.
Retorting destroys part of the thiamin in cat food, so overages and testing are built in.
Binders, protein sources and particle size decide whether chunks hold and gravy stays stable.
Heat drives Maillard reactions that reduce usable lysine, which affects how amino-acid targets are set.
Format, pack, species, market and positioning.
Recipe, emulsion and gravy system with energy calculation.
Texture and appearance reviewed with you.
Pilot batches through Guires Manufacturing.
Nutrients, thiamin, texture and stability analysis.
Recipe, process parameters and specification.
Peer-reviewed findings that shape how we develop this format.
Retorting cut thiamin in canned cat food by 30.4%, whatever the container; time to reach target lethality ranged from 29.5 to 45.6 minutes by pack size.
Thiamin overages and post-retort testing are standard in our cat recipes.
In moist canned cat foods, on average 48.6% of lysine had undergone early Maillard reaction.
Amino-acid targets allow for processing losses.
Canned cat food lost 17.8% of added thiamine over six months of storage.
Shelf-life studies include thiamin at each time point.
Each application has its own page with the evidence, the actives and the claim boundaries we work within.
Diets that support a healthy urinary tract.
Lighter, more satisfying diets that help pets reach and keep a healthy weight.
Helping pets stay healthy for longer.
Firm stools, comfortable digestion and a balanced gut microbiome.
Every ingredient we choose for wet & retort pet food is assessed for nutrient contribution, digestibility, processing behaviour, palatability and the rules in your market — and sourced to your specification.
Regulation updates, the latest research, recalls and market trends that shape wet & retort pet food — written by our formulation, testing and regulatory teams.
Every project at Guires Pet Nutrition Lab runs inside an ISO 9001:2015 certified quality system and FSSAI-licensed operations, with documented methods, calibrated instruments, traceable raw materials and reviewed reports — so the results behind your product can be checked and defended.
Yes. Wet pilot batches run through Guires Manufacturing, so recipes are proven on real process conditions.
Canned pet foods for the US are subject to FDA low-acid canned-food requirements, which we plan for from day one.
Yes. Cat recipes get particular attention to taurine, thiamin and palatability.
Real client projects — the problem, the science and the result.
Tell us the species, the format and the market — we will come back with an approach and next steps.
Every Guires PNL product is formulated to comply with the FEDIAF Nutritional Guidelines and the AAFCO Dog and Cat Food Nutrient Profiles. Neither body issues certificates to manufacturers, so compliance is verified independently against their published standards — and every product comes with a complete documentation package for regulatory submissions in the EU, US, Australia and Asian markets.
How we verify compliance →