Manufacturing Process

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FirstMate Pet Foods manufactures its own food at our facility in Chilliwack, just east of Vancouver, British Columbia.  Our state of the art equipment and strong quality assurance and control systems ensure that the food we produce is safe and wholesome.

Our government inspected pet food factory, pictured above, meets or exceeds United States and European Union pet food manufacturing standards.  This allows our products to be shipped to US markets as well as to European Union and other overseas destinations.   Our systems comply with all regulatory and traceability requirements for all of our ingredients.

FirstMate sources its fish meal from the British Columbia herring fishery.  Fish meal made from herring includes the entire fish, producing one of the finest sources of protein and Omega 3 fatty acids.  It is also one of the most expensive sources of fish meal.  Our blueberries come from the lush Fraser Valley of British Columbia, our potatoes come from Idaho, and our chicken meals and oils come from Alberta and British Columbia. FirstMate uses only the best fish oil and chicken fat.  The fish oil is from wild sardines, anchovies and herring from the Pacific ocean.  All of our ingredients are sourced from government processing plants.  Our wheat, corn, rice and tomato pomace come from the USA, and our lamb meal is from Australia.

FirstMate is formulated using the above ingredients.  Once the ingredients are selected for a specific diet, they are mixed together into a nutritionally complete mash.  The mash passes through a large sophisticated grinder that grinds up the ingredients to make them easier to process and to digest.  To the right is the grinder that we use at FirstMate. 

After grinding, we add steam and water to soften the ingredients and prepare the mash for cooking.  The extruder then cooks the mash and forms the diet into kibbles.  Cooking ensures that bacteria which might be present in the mash are eliminated and it increases the digestibility of carbohydrates. Below is a picture of our extruder

Following extrusion, the kibble is dried.  The moisture level in the food is reduced to below 10% which naturally prevents the feed from becoming moldy.  From the dryer the product is cooled and conveyed to an area where we add the various required fats.

The fish oil and chicken fat that we store in these tanks stays there for just a short while because of the fast turnover of our just-in-time inventory control.  Again, the fish oil comes from the herring fishery taking place in British Columbia or the offshore sardine and anchovy fishery off Peru.  There are many grades of fish meal and oil and FirstMate uses only the best.  The chicken oil is sourced from the same chickens as the chicken meal.  It comes from CFIA inspected plants in the Fraser Valley and Alberta.  FirstMate is confident of these ingredients and all the staff feed FirstMate to their own dogs and cats.

Once the FirstMate kibble is sufficiently and properly dried, it goes through a screening process that should eliminate any broken pieces of food or dust.  After the screening systems the kibble then enters our unique Vacuum Infusion System.  FirstMate is very proud of the Vacuum Infusion System because it is here that it allows us to add active enzymes that are found only in raw diets,  and probiotics that are the good bacteria.  The picture below is that of the Vacuum Infusion System (VIS for short).  The kibbles enter the large round chamber and then are gently rotated inside while we out all the air.  Then the liquids, in our case it would be the chicken fat and the fish oil and the enzymes and probiotics, are sprayed on the kibbles by sprayers located in the vacuum chamber and thoroughly coated.  We then allow the air to re-enter the VIS under a controlled system.  As the air goes in it pushes the liquid that is coating the kibble and it actually pushes it inside.  Subsequent entries of air push the liquids further into the kibble.  At the end of the process, which takes no longer than a few minutes, the kibble comes out dry but with the exact measured amount of oils in it and of course the still active enzymes and probiotics.  This process is very unique to FirstMate and all of us are very proud of it.

After the Vacuum Infusion System has infused the proper liquid nutrients into FirstMate pet foods, the product is ready to be packaged.  It is at this stage where we print the manufacturing and expiry date and product identity number on the package.  This is important not just for the consumer, but allows the various inspection agencies to do their job.  They come into our plant, pick out a bag from our inventory, at random, and ask us to prove and trace every ingredient that is listed on the ingredient list.  We then have to show in detail where each ingredient is sourced and how it got into our pant and documented. 

Finally, after the FirstMate pet foods is packaged, it is stacked and placed in our cooled warehouse.  We then ship FirstMate across Canada, into the USA and across the world to thousands of our satisfied customers.