Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Surface coated – fluid encapsulated – laminated solid... – Animal meat derived component
Reexamination Certificate
2000-01-06
2001-08-21
Sayala, Chhaya D. (Department: 1761)
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Surface coated, fluid encapsulated, laminated solid...
Animal meat derived component
C426S138000, C426S573000, C426S577000, C426S578000, C426S641000, C426S654000, C426S657000, C426S658000, C426S807000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06277420
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention identifies a product and a process for producing an improved, highly palatable and long lasting rawhide chew for pets.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
For years, there has been available a wide range of chew toys and chew treats for dogs and cats. The majority of the commercial interest lies in such products for dogs. These have been composed of both natural products and synthetic products. The two major requirements for such products are that they be at least somewhat palatable to the pets in order to maintain their interest and that they last a long time or have an extended “chew-life”.
In the area of synthetic products, toys such as rubber balls have been utilized for many years. A wide range of synthetic products based on rubber, nylon, plastic and polyurethane have been offered in numerous shapes with moderate success.
More natural products have recently achieved a wider share of the chew market. These include jerky type products, which in their early stages were very tough and achieved a long “chew-life”. In recent years, the jerky type products have been made utilizing emulsified meats and reforming processes. Such products tend to be more fragile than the early jerky which was simply dried beef muscle tissue. The reformed products can be consumed instantly by even small dogs and are no longer considered “chews”.
Natural products made from animal body parts have become popular in the marketplace. These include dried, smoked pig ears, tails, hoofs and bones. Also, a wide assortment of products is being made from rawhide. Such products can be made utilizing both sliced and dried rawhide as well as by chop and reform techniques. The main problem with rawhide has been that basic rawhide is not particularly palatable and dogs loose interest in the product after a relatively short time. Manufacturers have attempted to overcome this by coating or basting the rawhide with flavorings, but these are usually applied on the surface and are quickly licked off by the dog.
As indicated above, the challenge from the standpoint of product development is to achieve an acceptable chew from the point of palatability but still have an extended “chew-life”. The bulk of the prior art has involved addressing the palatability and “chew-life” characteristics.
As indicated above, early pet food jerky that was made by dehydrating low fat beef muscle tissue was highly palatable and could provide a reasonable “chew life” if sliced and dried in thick strips. Attempts have been made to toughen reformed jerky products to improve the “chew life”. Neilberger (U.S. Pat. No. 5,026,572) disclosed a multiple extrusion method of producing jerky by extruding a blend of wet beef and flour and then incorporating the cooked product of this first extrusion into a second extrusion step. Ray (U.S. Pat. No. 5,290,584) teaches the utilization of frozen mechanically separated meats that are comminuted to a small particle size and then mixed with pregelatinized flour prior to elevated temperature extrusion. Scaglione (U.S. Pat. No. 4,868,002) describes a process for making a tougher jerky using fibrous components of animal tissue or plant tissue such as wheat straw, alginates or industrial generated fibers.
Many long-lasting synthetic chews have been developed in attempts to address the “chew-life” issue. Axelrod (U.S. Pat. No. 4,771,733) discloses a method whereby an aqueous based flavor or odor is incorporated into a polyurethane resin based dog chew to improve the palatability of the product. Axelrod attempted further improvements to this technology (U.S. Pat. No. 5,339,771) by dispersing an animal meal within the matrix of a synthetic thermoplastic molded bone. Axelrod also discloses (U.S. Pat. No. 5,240,720) an injection molded chew produced from rennet casein and gelatin which can be heated by the consumer in a microwave oven to cause the chew to expand and thereby render it more easily chewable.
In the rawhide area, Sherrill (U.S. Pat. No. 5,673,653) has attempted to solve the difficulty of low palatability of rawhide by wrapping sheets of rawhide with sheets of beef jerky superimposed on each other. The sheets are then wrapped into a roll and dehydrated by conventional methods to form a flavored rawhide chew containing a dehydrated beef fraction. While this teaching does improve the flavor of rawhide, many of the volatiles containing a significant portion of the flavoring are evaporated during the dehydration step. A second shortcoming of this process is that many highly palatable ingredients such as sugars cannot easily be incorporated in the process. Also, the final product will contain a very high percentage of rawhide fraction as compared to meat fraction further reducing the acceptability.
Fisher (U.S. Pat. No. 4,260,635) describes a method of producing shredded rawhide and molding said rawhide with edible ingredients such as cereals, dried meat and collagen based binders into a chew product. A multilayer type product is identified by layering portions of fibrous product described above with portions of product molded without the use of said shredded fibers. This product has the disadvantage of containing low levels of meat fraction as well as evaporation of the highly palatable volatile flavors during dehydration.
Lehn (U.S. Pat. No. 4,702,929) developed a method for grinding tannery waste material called spetches, mixing same together with a starch material and passing through several heating zones and a die plate; whereupon the extruded pieces were cut into a “chew” size treat. Such extruded product was then dehydrated to form an edible chew. While flavoring could be formulated into the mix prior to extrusion, the end product was primarily a homogenous dehydrated blend of rawhide fraction and starch binder. Spanier (U.S. Pat. No. 5,047,231) describes a method for preparing a rawhide chew suitable for use with dogs to prevent tartar accumulation. Such chew is produced by treating the hide with at least one inorganic pyrophosphate compound and dehydrating.
Greenberg (U.S. Pat. No. 5,635,237) teaches a method utilizing a twin screw extruder to reform small scraps of rawhide into a single homogenous unit. Greenberg does suggest that coloring or flavoring can be incorporated by external application to improve the palatability. While it is also suggested that through the use of two extruders, a soft filling could be incorporated into the center of an outer shell, such filling is expected to contain substantially all rawhide possibly flavored with a jerky fraction and softeners such as propylene glycol.
Other attempts have been made to utilize combinations of different ingredients utilizing coextrusion techniques to mix a softer more palatable phase with a more chewy less palatable phase. Matthews (U.S. Pat. No. 4,921,714) discloses a triple coextrusion technique to stuff a meat product into a casing with separate filling and fat phases that are pumped independently into the casing. Another coextruded product, this one in the shape of a bone was disclosed by Miller (U.S. Pat. No. 3,899,607) in which the outside of the matrix is a formulated simulated bone and the inner portion contains a simulated “marrow” filling which is soft and stabilized by a high level of food grade humectant.
An additional teaching similar to the rawhide processes, is that of Woodford (U.S. Pat. No. 5,186,124) which discloses a process whereby shark skin with a small quantity of meat remaining is cut into strips and dehydrated to yield a leathery chew designated primarily for cats.
Other prior art known to applicants include the U.S. Pat. No. 5,200,212 to Axelrod, and the U.S. Pat. No. 4,364,925 to Fisher.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The objective of the present invention is to create a rawhide chew for dogs that is more palatable than the existing rawhide based products. It is further an object of the present invention to create the above improved palatability with little or no loss in the “chew life” of the product. It is the object of this invention to accomplish the above improvements by utilizin
Andersen David B.
Harpe Richard L.
Denk Paul M.
Sayala Chhaya D.
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