Why Do Cat Freeze-Dried Food Prices Vary by Up to 10x?

1 Raw Material Quality

We looked at two freeze-dried products currently on sale online:

A 500 g bucket of chicken freeze-dried: 500 g for 44 yuan, i.e. 88 yuan per kg.

A 70 g pack of chicken-breast freeze-dried: 70 g for 59 yuan, i.e. 842 yuan per kg.

Why can freeze-dried prices differ by as much as ten times?

The gap in raw materials

Fresh meat is 75%–80% water, while genuine pure-meat freeze-dried is under 5% water. So roughly 4–5 jin of fresh meat makes 1 jin of freeze-dried.

Take chicken-breast ingredient prices as an example:

Branded: 13,000 yuan per ton

Ordinary: 10,000 yuan per ton

Lower-grade: 7,000 yuan per ton or even less

Based on ingredient costs, the raw-material cost of pure chicken-breast freeze-dried works out to:

Branded chicken-breast freeze-dried: 52–65 yuan per kg

Ordinary chicken-breast freeze-dried: 40–50 yuan per kg

Lower-grade chicken-breast freeze-dried: 28–35 yuan per kg

So the quality of ingredients alone can make the final freeze-dried cost differ by more than double.

Freeze-dried factories reveal that some low-end products add starch to the meat chunks to cut costs.

2 Freeze-Drying Process

Production process

Quality freeze-dried food must be dried under vacuum at low temperature (−30 to −40°C); a full production cycle usually takes about three days. Spread across the process, electricity and equipment wear cost roughly 30 yuan per kg.

Most factories cannot meet vacuum-drying standards, and some can only reach −20°C. When the vacuum is insufficient, the temperature too high, or the drying time too short, the freeze-dried retains more moisture and spoils more easily. So many factories simply raise the temperature to 80°C and bake the ingredients dry. Baking gives the food a waxy yellow look and damages its color, shape, and aroma.

3 Sterilization, Logistics & Branding

Irradiation sterilization

Freeze-drying only dehydrates food in a sub-zero environment; it cannot sterilize it. So freeze-dried products must be irradiated after packaging. Most freeze-dried factories have no irradiation equipment — first because the machines are generally expensive, and second because irradiation plants require certification.

Factories therefore usually commission a third party to do irradiation. Freeze-dried irradiation typically comes in three levels: 4K, 5K, and 6K. The higher the dose, the more thorough the sterilization, but the lower the palatability and the greater the loss of vitamins and other nutrients.

Warehousing and logistics

For e-commerce, shipping cost is a large share of the total — many sellers joke that they work for the courier companies. Add warehousing and packing labor, and that is another sizable cost.

Brand promotion and distributors

For a normal brand, promotion and advertising, back-office staff costs, and distributor channel fees together push the cost up several more notches.

4 How to Choose Quality Freeze-Dried Food

Summary

1. Raw materials and electricity form the most direct costs. Good ingredients plus genuine freeze-drying technology put the final product around 90 yuan/kg. It is not advisable to buy freeze-dried cheaper than this.

2. Freeze-drying only dries, it does not truly sterilize. So choose individually sealed freeze-dried packs, and avoid mixed or transparent packaging.

3. If freeze-dried is yellow in color and shrunken in shape, it may have been baked rather than freeze-dried.