Commercial Wet Cat Food Is Packaged In the Wrong Sizes

There is a requirement for new portion size in UK cat food judging by the picture below:

Cat food waste
Cat food waste

Not all domestic cats leave a lot of food behind in the bowl after feeding but a good percentage do and that includes my cats (past and present). Almost every time my cat will leave about a third of the portion that I’ve given him behind which usually goes to waste.

I feed my cat with standard pouch portions. It is wet cat food supplied in pouches which weigh 100 grams each and there are 12 box. A mouse weighs around 30 grams or less. On that basis a standard pouch of wet cat food = 3 mice. Too much.

In the UK you can also buy cat food in large cans and small cans. Of course, you can also buy dry cat food (Kibble) supplied in a large bag.

It occurred to me, that the manufacturers could or perhaps should rethink packaging of their wet cat food to take into account the requirement for greater flexibility and portion size. The portion sizes at the moment are too large in general. This is why a lot of cats leave a lot of cat food in the bowl.

A study found that cats that eat smaller meals but more often were more active and lost weight. Added water had the same effect. Also I believe that cats prefer to eat more frequently and less at each sitting than people and therefore the amount put down should reflect that. What I mean is that the portion should be smaller and served up more frequently and as mentioned the cat caretaker should be given a degree of control over portion size. This can be achieved if the cat owner can place a variable number of small portions in the bowl.

I don’t believe it is practical to use part of a can or part of pouch because the food goes off once opened.

When you think about it this is actually what a person does when s(he) feeds dry cat food to her cat. Dry cat food is very flexible with respect to portion size. Wet cat food isn’t. Wet cat food should be in small portions and these portions can then be added together to form the correct amount of food to suit any individual cat’s eating habits.

feline fudge sweeties small portion cat food
Intermediate packing for wet cat food. The name is made up and the food is not sweet!

What I came up with was a fudge-like cat food which is wrapped up in sweet-like wrappers but which are about 3 times larger than the average sweet. The weight of each would be about 10-20 grams. Each portion has a liquid centre! This sort of packaging is in between dry cat food and the current packaging of wet cat food. Each wrapped portion would be air-tight.

When a person feeds their cat with this intermediate type food they can put in the bowl anything from 1 to 5 portions. The cat caretaker will learn the amount that their cat usually eats at a sitting. Once the number of portions of this intermediate-sized wet cat food has been ascertained, everything else being equal, the cat should eat all of it.

13 thoughts on “Commercial Wet Cat Food Is Packaged In the Wrong Sizes”

  1. Now, how to go about it. It would be so much cheaper too. Less garbage. Fewer wrist injuries…. I wonder what places like best friends do? Alley cat allies? Other feral cat organizations. Seems so silly to have to open little cans. I think it would be important to use it all up at the same time if it came in gallon jugs.

    Honestly, I wouldn’t want to enter a cat food making plant. Ignorance is bliss. But it could be worth asking the question. Do it Dee!

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