Cooper Farms, a family-owned and -operated, vertically-integrated farm based in Ohio, now offers human-grade turkey ingredients for pet food.
The company’s ingredients are sourced from turkeys raised by family farmers who supply Cooper Farms with sustainable sourced protein, which pet food manufacturers and their customers have come to demand, said Lynn DeArmond, new business development manager.
“Cooper Farms’ venture into pet food ingredient sales began about five years ago,” said DeArmond. “We had a major pet food manufacturer contact us looking for someone who would produce ingredients to their specs and almost immediately, we found a niche market other suppliers were not filling with a giblet blend.”
Unique products from custom-designed equipment
The customer was looking for natural proportions of livers, hearts and gizzards, but could not source gizzards without foreign material. Sales presented the challenge to the Cooper Farms engineering and fabrication team and within days, the group had designed equipment capable of splitting the gizzard open and cleaning it before it merges with the hearts and livers to be ground into a natural proportion blend.
“Listening to the customer has enabled Cooper Farms to offer some unique products such as bone cake and bone residue,” said DeArmond. “I love to task our research and development department with a customer's request as they’re always up to the challenge.”
Products now available include:
- Mechanically separated turkey (MST)
- Gibs (giblets) -- hearts and livers
- Thigh trim
- Boneless, skinless wing meat
- Turkey skin
- Neck meat
- Breast meat
- Tendon straps
Product typically leaves Cooper Farms fresh in 2,000-pound combos. If a customer’s specifications require frozen, Cooper Farms will send it to a partner facility to be frozen before sending on to the customer.
