Chicken fat plays a critical role in pet food, offering a rich energy source and contributing to palatability, skin health, and overall vitality. It’s long been a staple ingredient, but not all chicken fat is created equal. While traditional rendering methods yield a usable product, they also leave behind impurities that can complicate manufacturing and compromise quality. That’s why Pet Food Solutions set out to do something different — and why Gold Shield® Refined Chicken Fat now stands apart as a precision ingredient with proven scientific advantages.
Why PFS Saw a Need to Do Something Different
Standard chicken fat contains roughly 4% non-fat materials: insolubles, salts, bio materials, trace metals, moisture, and other contaminants that can affect everything from microbial safety to line performance. These impurities aren’t just aesthetic — they’re operational hazards. They can clog nozzles, encourage bacterial growth, and contribute to oxidation and spoilage over time.
Pet Food Solutions recognized that fat quality had plateaued in the industry. While manufacturers were improving every other aspect of their products, their fats remained stuck in a “good enough” mindset. That’s what drove the development of Gold Shield® — a refined chicken fat engineered for consistency, safety, and performance.
The Refining Process
Gold Shield® Refined Chicken Fat is created using a highly automated, patent-pending process that balances four variables: water, pressure, heat, and time. This process removes the non-fat components from standard chicken fat without introducing any chemical solvents or additives.
The result is a translucent amber product that is free from the contaminants that commonly cause shutdowns and inconsistencies. The removed materials — including insolubles and microbial threats — are diverted for safe, sustainable uses like biodiesel or land application, so nothing is wasted.
Key processing benefits include:
- Removal of microbial impurities like Salmonella, which is destroyed during processing. In fact, if Salmonella were to enter our process from the standard chicken fat, it would be quickly killed
- Inactivation of bird flu virus (HPAI H5N1) under typical process conditions. You can read more here about how we do it, and we even certify to customers that Gold Shield® Refined Chicken Fat is free from these contaminants.
- A 4% increase in usable fat per load, thanks to the removal of impurities
- Zero added solvents or reagents, making it safer for people, pets, and processing lines
The Science Behind Gold Shield®
Gold Shield® Refined Chicken Fat is more than a cleaner fat — it’s a smarter one. Backed by five years of data, it delivers measurable benefits that standard chicken fat cannot.
Purity and Consistency
- Insolubles reduced from 4% to below 0.5%
- Moisture and contaminants drastically lowered
- Far fewer production line clogs or shutdowns
Improved Safety Profile
- Salmonella free COA accompanies every delivery
- Bird flu virus inactivated by process heat
- No growth medium for bacteria, thanks to impurity removal
Environmental Impact
- Uses existing animal byproducts, not new agricultural resources
- Produces 8x less CO₂ than soybean oil and 3x less than canola
Nutritional Impact & Precise Formulations
- Removes trace metals and salts, including phosphorus and iron, for more precise nutritional formulations
- Reduces toxic metal exposure by eliminating cadmium, lead, mercury, and arsenic found in some standard fats
Do Better for Your Brand
Gold Shield® Refined Chicken Fat helps brands move forward with confidence. Cleaner fats mean fewer unplanned shutdowns, more reliable formulations, and a product that delivers full nutritional value without the complications that come with standard chicken fat. With today’s scrutiny on quality, precision, and sustainability, the ingredient you choose matters more than ever.
Gold Shield® Refined Chicken Fat is what happens when science meets purpose. And when it comes to results, the difference is CLEAR.
