How our food is made and packaged

Responsible production

The origins of 3coty® were gaining knowledge of what was causing our cat called Cookie allergies. Turning this knowledge into a business was because others love their cats as much as we love ours and they deserve honest help in increasing their cats’ longevity. Out of respect for the earth on which we live, we also want to make sure that our passion to help cats and their owners has as little negative impact along the way as possible.

A key part of this is responsible consumption and sustainable production. It does not end with being responsible about how we source our cat food ingredients to make sure our food is healthy. We also care about how we manufacture and process our ingredients and how we package the food, including where we get the packaging from. And we encourage our customers to be responsible about how they dispose of what they buy from us. The food obviously goes into the cats, and we would hope that recycling the empty tins is just as obvious.

Inside the tin

Meat

There is a lot of talk of meat on our site. Because that is the natural food for cats. In the wild, they catch, kill and eat meat which is very local to them. Their extraordinary sense of smell allows them to check it is not diseased.

If they are unable to hunt their own food, we need to do some of the above tasks for them. At 3coty®, all our meat travels less than 200km from its farm to our production site. We confess, a bit further than the usual feline hunting ground, but we like that nothing travels more than about 2 hrs to get from where it lived to our factory. Rather than rely on our sense of smell, we place our trust in EU inspectors under the supervision of the local veterinary authority. This is why, all meat we use in our production comes fresh to us and our suppliers have EU certification that their meat can be used in the production of pet feed, a very hard to get certification, a higher standard than meat for human consumption and free from any parasites.

Plant oils

To ensure your cats get all the necessary fatty acids we do add some oils to the meat in our cat food. We have chosen suppliers who are close to our factory and who carry certificates of organic farming. Unfortunately, unlike for meat, there is no single EU-wide certificate for organic farming. Like with meat, we can only use oils from producers that do have EU certification for the production of oils that can be used in animal feed.

Taurine

The final ingredient in the tins is taurine. A vital amino acid for cats, found in meat… and the highest levels are found in mice. We do not get it from mice, rather we get it from the Netherlands, from one of the leaders in animal feed additives and vitamins.

Dried Algea

Recently introduced in some of our cat food flavours, this is the only ingredient that comes from outside the EU because it does not grow anywhere inside the EU. Our spirulina and chlorella come from a warmer climate – southern Asia, via Italy, where it is fully tested and certified for animal use.

The tins

So that covers all the things inside the tin. But what about the tin itself and why is it a tin? It is not for the reason you think “wet cat food always comes in tins so let us carry on what others did”. We did try glass jars for our cat food. And that was fine when we were feeding Cookie at home or selling in person at cat shows. We were careful about how we carried it and our customers were careful too. As soon as we needed to use a middleman to carry our cat food to our customers, the glass became a problem. It breaks easily. If the glass is thick enough to reduce the risk of breaking, it is very heavy, so shipping costs went up. The light through the glass also accelerated spoilage, so preservatives would have been needed to keep the food from going bad. By using tins, we can preserve the food using the natural process of hot water sterilisation and pressure combined in precise measures and do not need to add any preservatives to keep the food fresh.

So tins it is.

We wanted to ensure that the tins were sustainably made and transported to us. What is the point of trying to be responsible in our packaging when the empty packages travel all the way from China to Europe! We are pleased to have tins coming from Poland or Bulgaria.

Outside the tin

Labels

We have been testing a range of different label materials over the years. On the smaller tins, we found that paper labels tore too easily, so we use a plastic label.

Boxes

Packing our tins into boxes makes them easier to handle and ship and if you have not found a way to re-use them, you can always recycle them.

Bubble and shrink wrap

Unfortunately, we found that shipping to many locations without bubble wrap around and inside the boxes caused damage to the tins. So for the time being, we feel obliged to wrap the boxes in bubble wrap to make sure the tins arrive with you in a good condition. We are experimenting with paper-based wrap, but so far found them expensive and not as reliable.

We moved to a new shrink wrap recently on learning that the dark one we used in the past is harder to recycle than its lighter coloured equivalent.

Zero waste

Our production process is based on the zero-waste philosophy. We use minimal amounts of water necessary for production and ensure that the amount of waste produced during the production process is close to zero – the only element that is left (very occasionally!) is bones which are too large and they go to a certified organic waste utilisation facility.

What happens at the end of the product lifecycle is also important, so we produced this guide to recycling our packaging.

Our planet

We strive to improve and care about our planet. Everything that we do is aimed at minimising any waste, including the waste of natural resources. We have installed solar photovoltaic panels on our roof so our production facility (which operates during the day) is now fully solar-powered. This reduces our carbon footprint, another way in which we are contributing to our planet remaining a good home for our cats, your cats and us cat owners.

Shifting your and your cat’s lifestyle

We believe that the power is in our hands – the power to improve our own health, the health of our pets and the health of our planet. Twentieth-century industrialisation and culture, a faster and easier life, have impacted negatively on our planet, our health and that of our pets. We can change this. Every contribution made by someone who cares adds up. At 3coty® we are making contributions in every part of our business towards this change – the way we think about nutrition, the way we think about our pets, the way we think about the environment.