High-quality pet food must not only taste good to our four-legged friends, but also be digestible. That's why our high-quality recipes are developed by a team of nutritionists, veterinarians and agronomists. Our experts are always fully up to date and pick up on the latest findings of recognised animal nutritionists.

At Josera, we therefore do everything we can to produce nothing less than the best pet food. We do so without any genetic engineering, animal testing or artificial additives - but in a sustainable, responsible way that is good for our animals. We only use high-quality ingredients that are as natural as possible in our recipes and do not use any wheat or soya at all.

For us, the focus is not only on compatibility and best acceptance by the four-legged friend, but also on catering for animals with special needs. We address allergies and intolerances with our wide range of species-appropriate and optimally balanced recipes.

To ensure that the quality of our pet food always meets our own high criteria, we even have our own accredited laboratory at our production site. Here, around 20 food chemists, biologists and laboratory technicians work hand in hand and examine all incoming raw materials before they are processed according to the highest quality standards. In addition, they also check the outgoing products once again before they leave the factory.

We are also the proud holders of the following seals of approval and certificates:

• The IFS Food Standard is a standard recognised by the GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) for the auditing of food manufacturers. The focus is on food safety and quality.
• Ökotest put 11 of our puppy foods to the test, four of which received the test mark ‘very good’ - including our Josera YoungStar.
• The DLG is an organisation of the German agricultural and food industry. The DLG standard is intended to help adequately assess the sustainability performance of farms and their products.

We use different types of protein sources in our recipes to meet the needs of our four-legged friends in a species-appropriate way. In our dry food, we use meat meal because its nutritional value makes it very suitable for use in animal food. In addition to a high protein content, it also provides amino acids and fats. Our poultry protein contains dried meat, for example, but also offal and, to a lesser extent, bones, which are important for ensuring an optimal supply of calcium.

Meat meal is therefore in no way inferior to fresh meat in terms of nutrients and digestibility! Animals also find it delicions. We mainly use poultry, lamb and duck as animal protein sources, but we also have exotic species in our range, including insects.

We process dried animal protein in our Josera dog and cat food. This contains about 80% protein and fat. Fresh meat, on the other hand, contains about 80% water.

In the production of dry food with fresh meat, high amounts of fresh meat are often declared and also used in the recipe, which at first looks like an enormous amount of meat to you as a customer. But one must not forget that 80 % water evaporates during extrusion, which means that proportionately more fresh meat must be used to achieve the same effect as with dried protein.

Good to know:

The fresh meat from which our dried animal protein is obtained comes exclusively from slaughterhouses that also process meat for human consumption. Animals that are rejected by the veterinarian as unfit for human consumption after slaughter (e.g. due to illness) are not used in our animal food. We thoroughly test every ingredient - and thus also every meat meal - before it is released, so you don't have to worry about your four-legged friend getting food that isn't fit for human consumption or is made from inferior ingredients.

Here are a few tips:

• A cool storage place is best. The word “cool” is relative and does not mean that the food has to be kept in the fridge.
• Seal the food airtight and store it in a dry and rather dark place.
• Ideally, the food should not be affected by any foreign odours. Your four-legged friend has a very sensitive nose and foreign odours could lead to acceptance problems.
• Feel free to use a resealable feeding tray. But make sure you wash it with hot water before each refilling in order to prevent mites from entering the food.

As a family business, we attach great importance to maintaining long-term partnerships with suppliers who act in a similarly forward-looking manner as we do. The origin of the raw materials used also plays a major role. The majority of our raw materials come from Europe. However, this is not possible for all ingredients. For example, the New Zealand green-lipped mussel cannot come from Europe and the rice cannot come from Germany. Moreover, since our food constantly meets the highest quality standards, we have to think a little further ahead about buying regional products where this is necessary and ecologically sensible. We asses this ecological dimension by looking at the Product Environmental and Product Carbon Footprints of our sourced raw materials. In this respect, it is evident that it is not always the transport routes that have the greatest impact on the environment, but in many cases alternative forms of cultivation or husbandry are deciding factors.

We would like to explain this with the example of salmon: In this case, after the joint assessment of the PEF, we decided to use so-called by-products from Norwegian aquaculture. We know that aquacultures can have a major negative impact on the environment, but we now believe that preserving the biodiversity of the oceans by not using wild catches is more important.

We could go on and on with such examples, and the decisions in individual cases are definitely not getting any easier, as we are increasingly concerned with the upstream environmental impact of the raw materials we buy. We are, however, rising to the challenge and continue to work on ourselves, our products and the processes that shape our selection of suppliers and raw materials.

The meat used for our products comes exclusively from slaughterhouses. All animals delivered there are fit for human consumption. In the slaughterhouses, the meat is separated according to various criteria. First, the prime cuts (in the case of chicken, generally only breast and thigh) are separated and packaged for retail or further processed.

Parts that are healthy and suitable for consumption, but are not used in Germany due to low demand, are processed to make animal food. These parts include offal, necks, and to a small extent bones, but NOT feathers, beaks and claws, as these are very difficult to digest and would result in your four-legged friend producing large piles of faeces.

Animals that are rejected by the veterinarian as unfit for human consumption after slaughter (e.g. due to illness) are not used in our animal food. We thoroughly test every ingredient - and thus also all meat - before it is released, so you don't have to worry about your four-legged friend getting food that isn't fit for human consumption or is made from inferior ingredients.

In other words, the same criteria apply to the meat that goes into pet food production as to those that go into the food industry.