ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Animal Nutrition and Metabolism
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1593209
This article is part of the Research TopicInnovative Sustainable Proteins: Transforming Pet Nutrition for Better Health and WelfareView all articles
Safety, Efficacy, Gastrointestinal Tolerance, and Digestibility of Brewed Chicken Protein in Healthy Adult Dogs
Provisionally accepted- 1University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, United States
- 2Bond Pet Foods, Colorado, United States
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Introduction: Producing enough protein continues to be a challenge, but alternatives may provide economic and ecological relief. Sufficient testing is necessary to confirm safety and evaluate nutritional value. Our objective was to evaluate the safety, efficacy, gastrointestinal tolerance, and apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of brewed chicken protein (BCP; Saccharomyces cerevisiae expressing a chicken protein).Methods: Thirty-two healthy adult dogs (BW = 9.68±1.18 kg; age = 4.16±1.85 yr] were used in a completely randomized design (n=8/treatment). After a 2-wk acclimation phase, baseline measurements were collected and dogs were allotted to the following treatments and fed for 26 wk: control diet (0% BCP; Control), 15% BCP (Low), 30% BCP (Medium), or 40% BCP (High).Palatability was assessed by comparing dry diets coated with 0% (control) vs. 1% BCP in 20 adult dogs. Data were analyzed using the Mixed Models procedure of SAS 9.4, with P<0.05 being significant and trends accepted at P<0.10.Results: Consumption of BCP did not affect food intake, BW, physical parameters, serum chemistry, hematology, and urinalysis. The dry matter, organic matter, and crude protein ATTD were greater (P<0.05) for High, while the fat ATTD was greater (P<0.05) for Control. Fecal output was lower (P<0.0001) and fecal dry matter was lower (P<0.001) for dogs fed High. Fecal acetate concentrations were lower (P<0.05) and propionate concentrations tended to be higher (P = 0.06) in dogs fed BCP. Fecal isobutyrate, isovalerate, indole, total phenol and indole, and ammonia concentrations were lower (P<0.001) and fecal valerate concentrations were higher (P<0.0001) in dogs fed BCP. Fecal bacterial alpha diversity was lower (P<0.05) in dogs fed BCP. For beta diversity, dogs fed Control were different than those fed BCP. Over 20 fecal bacterial genera were affected by BCP consumption. Palatability of BCP was high (P<0.05; 2.93:1 consumption ratio).These results indicate that the BCP ingredient tested is an effective source of protein that is safe for use in adult dog foods at an inclusion level of up to 40%. No detrimental effects were observed, and notable changes to nutrient digestibility and fecal characteristics, metabolites, and microbiota populations suggest potential benefits on gastrointestinal health.
Keywords: canine nutrition, novel protein, Pet food, precision fermentation, sustainability
Received: 13 Mar 2025; Accepted: 03 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Smola, Swanson, Oba, Mioto, Belloso and Audibert. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Kelly S. Swanson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, United States
Tomas Belloso, Bond Pet Foods, Colorado, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.