An increase in the awareness of preventative healthcare in the humanitarian sector in the last few years, combined with a growing humanization of pets has increased the demand for premium pet care products.
Grain-free pet food is a very hot topic these days, however a more accurate term would be to call it Gliadin-free food. The polypeptide Gliadin is found in both wheat, barley, rye and oats, and gliadin is responsible for the gluten-sensitive enteropathies seen in humans and dogs.
Various attempts have been made to produce extruded feed or food product(s) with stable and viable probiotic bacteria count over the entire shelf-life period of the carrier product [1-3]. However, determination of the number of bacteria, and especially evaluation of their growth and metabolic activity in extruded food and feed products by means of outplating etc. cannot be considered sufficiently precise and convenient.