The manufacturer of the first Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP)-certified pet food is working diligently to make the product available for purchase in United States’ grocery chains later this year.
The Snif-Snax Smoked Salmon & Sweet Potato Bites dog treats, made by Miami, Florida, U.S.A.-based MacKnight Food Group, are the first in a planned line of BAP-certified pet treats from the company. MacKnight also produces a wide variety of smoked salmon products using Atlantic salmon farmed in Scotland, Norway, and Chile for human consumption.
Currently, the Snif-Snax pet food products, which include Smoked Salmon Cutlets and Smoked Salmon Fillets, are available on Snif-Snax’s website as well as on amazon.com. Snif-Snax also manufactures private label pet treats for national retail chains.
“There are some big retailers in the U.S. that endorse BAP 3-star and 4-star,” Aaron Brown, general manager of Snif-Snax, told SeafoodSource. “We are hoping that, with BAP certifications, we will stand out from the crowd.”
The Atlantic salmon used in the new treats originates from BAP-certified hatcheries and BAP-certified farms, and has been fed by a BAP-certified feed mill, giving it its four-star BAP status. They are produced at MacKnight’s 15,000-square-foot processing plant in Miami, which obtained BAP-certification last October.
Brown expects the BAP pet treats to be successful in the future because “a lot of pet owners today want to humanize their dogs’ experience with food.”
“With the BAP human certification, dogs are eating the same salmon a human would,” he said.
Notably, the Snif-Snax BAP-certified salmon pet treats are priced competitively with other premium pet treats because the company sources and processes the salmon itself, according to Brown.
While MacKnight is focusing on the United States first for the BAP-approved pet treats, Brown also expects the company to target United Kingdom retailers — since the company has a factory in there — as well as retailers in Canada.
The salmon pet treat is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, and is antibiotic-free, gluten-free and made with only two natural ingredients, “which appeals to the burgeoning high-end pet food market,” according to Brown.
