Posted at 08 November 2018

Cats are known to be finicky eaters. Understanding how they perceive the gustative, aromatic and textural properties of a food is thus crucial to conceive products they will like. During the meal, each step exhibits some key attributes of the food that impact cat feeding behavior. Food selection is for instance strongly influenced by kibble aroma release while the textural and structural properties of the diet is critical in the chewing phase. 

A deep understanding of dry cat food palatability drivers is possible by combining several innovative and dynamic “sensorial-oriented” characterization methods.This multi-method approach helps draw a clearer picture of kibble behavior during cat’s meal. Information gathered, from kibble destructuration process to aroma release dynamic in the mouth can help relate product attributes and cat’s preference from a sensorial point of view. Monitoring the products attributes while observing animals feeding behavior for each sequence of the meal is a big advance in the understanding of cat palatability.