PET Food Processing - September 2018 - 19

the Lortscher acquisition goes beyond extrusion. "The purpose of that acquisition was to get deeper into the supply
chain than we previously could be and to have more control
over a relatively large, and vitally important aspect of the
supply chain," Krehbiel explains.
Although C.J. Foods has strong partnerships with other
pre-mix providers, well over 50% of the dry ingredients the
company requires for processing is provided by Lortscher.

EXPLORE CUTTING
of Pet Food Ingredients

"Investment in
equipment or more
space is not always
what you need to
have more capacity."
John Krehbiel, C.J. Foods
"It's much more than purchasing ingredients that we need,"
Krehbiel says. "Lortscher, along with several other pre-mix
providers, sources the ingredients, stores them, blends them
according to each unique recipe, grinds them, loads them
onto a pneumatic tanker and delivers what we need when
we need it to whichever facility we request. We felt that we
needed to make sure that this source and supply was protected because it's so vital to our business."
Responding to another challenging request led C.J. Foods
to start a private brands division two years ago. The company believes that at some point, the growth in the superpremium category will level off. "If we, as a company, want
to continue to grow, we must ask, 'what else we can do with
the assets, knowledge, understanding, experience and reputation that we have?'" Krehbiel says. "The most obvious is
private brands, so we elected to move in that direction. An
opportunity presented itself with one account and one situation. We dove in and learned together through the process."
The private brands division of C.J. Foods provides services beyond the kibble to include product launches, positioning, production, in-store education and marketing support
from initial concept to the shelf to the consumer. Heather
Govea, vice president of private brands for C.J. Foods, says,
"Private brands provide retailers a sense of control over
their footsteps and helps drive loyalty with their customers."

Same but different
C.J. Foods has five fully automated extrusion cooking systems that combine to produce in excess of 400 million lbs.
of extruded pet food, treats and high-end caged avian diets annually. Across the company's four facilities dedicated

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cuts to precise dices and
slices, rely on Urschel to
assist you in consistently
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www.petfoodprocessing.net | September 2018 | PET FOOD PROCESSING 19
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PET Food Processing - September 2018

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