Chicken meal

Chicken meal, according to the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO), is the dry rendered product from a combination of clean chicken flesh and skin with or without accompanying bone, derived from whole carcasses of chicken, exclusive of feathers, heads, feet and entrails.

Chicken meal is ground up chicken meat that has been carefully dried to a moisture level of 10%. The protein content is 65% and the fat level is 12%. Regular chicken contains about 70% water with 18% protein and 5% fat.

Use in pet food

Chicken meal is mainly used in pet foods, its protein content higher than regular chicken because most of the water has been removed.

Typically when it comes to pet food, all of the ingredients (meats, grains, vitamins, minerals) are mixed together and put through a machine called an extruder. The extruder cooks the mixture by adding steam and water. The result is the familiar kibble coming out of the extruder and is subsequently dried. Fat is added after drying. (Sans the meat, this is the same process for making many breakfast cereals.) The final pet product has a moisture level of around 10%.

The processing of chicken along with the other ingredients is essentially converting it to chicken meal. The chicken used to make meal is generally stored frozen to minimize microbial growth. The frozen chicken is thawed and made into a slurry before it is added to the mix.

Chicken meal in a finished food provides roughly 4-5 times the nutrients as the same weight of chicken because of the differences in moisture. So, a pet food comprised of regular chicken may only have 20% of the chicken in the final product, providing only 3.6% protein. An equivalent proportion of chicken meal would provide 13% protein.