ISSUE FOCUS 40 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE December 2025 • First choice: which food the dog approached and consumed first. This dual-criteria assessment provides a robust measure of true preference and feeding motivation. USED DIETS FOR TRIALS To support transparency and provide a clear overview of the test design, the diets used across all trials are summarized on Table 1. Results: Mealtime decisions made easy All trials were conducted using a standard twobowl preference test in 20 adult dogs, fed once daily. Palatability was evaluated by spontaneous acceptance (intake share) and first-choice behaviour. Baseline validation - Confirming digest as the acceptance driver To establish the reference point, dogs received: • Diet A: Premium dog food without digest • Diet B: same diet with 3 % digest As expected, digest significantly increased spontaneous intake and first-choice selection, confirming its essential role in palatability and validating the study model. Preference shifted from ~50/50 for the control diet to approximately 84/16 in favour of the digest-containing diet, clearly demonstrating digest as the primary intake driver. Diet B served as the validated commercial benchmark for all following tests (Figure 1). Figure 1. Effects of including digest in pet food, confirming its role as the primary palatability driver Diet Composition Digest level PetArom level Purpose Table 1. Diet Overview and Experimental Definitions Diet A Diet B Diet C Diet D Diet E Premium dog food Premium dog food + liquid digest Premium dog food + PetArom Premium dog food + liquid digest + PetArom Premium dog food + liquid digest + PetArom 0% 3% 0% 3% 3% 0 g/100 kg 0 g/100 kg 20 g/100 kg 20 g/100 kg 40 g/100 kg Negative control Positive control / benchmark Stand-alone PetArom effect Synergy evaluation Dose-response evaluation Digest = hydrolyzed animal protein palatant PetArom Beef P = targeted flavour enhancer for dogs (powder) Spontaneous Acceptance * * * * * * 1st Choice 100 80 60 40 20 0 Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 19 1 20 20 20 16 12 8 4 0 Diet Consumption (% per day) Number of Dogs (out of 20) 17.9 82.1 82.6 87.8 17.4 12.2 B: Premium dog food + Chicken oil (3%) + Liquid premium digest (3%) A: Premium dog food + Chicken oil (3%) *...P<0.05 (ANOVA, post-hoc Tukey HSD test)
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