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How Cat Food Is Made

How kibble, canned, pouch, gently-cooked, air-dried, freeze-dried, steam-dried, and raw frozen cat food is manufactured, and what each process does to the ingredients.

Published April 2026

The way a cat food is processed affects what ingredients can be used, how much nutrition survives manufacturing, and what additives are needed to keep the product stable. Two products with identical ingredient lists but different processing methods can deliver very different nutritional outcomes.

Understanding how each format is made helps explain why some products need preservatives and others do not, why the first ingredient on a kibble label may not be the main component of the finished product, and why freeze-dried food costs more per kilogram than canned.

Here is how each of the main cat food formats is manufactured, and what it means for what ends up in your cat's bowl.

Kibble (Extruded Dry Food)

Ingredients are ground, mixed into a dough, then pushed through an extruder where they're cooked under high heat (120-180°C) and pressure. As the dough exits, the sudden pressure drop causes it to expand into its familiar puffed shape. The kibble is then oven-dried to around 8-10% moisture and typically spray-coated with fats, flavourings, or palatants. During this process, most of the moisture from fresh meat ingredients is lost, meaning dry ingredients like rice, wheat, or legumes, which lose very little weight during processing, may make up a larger proportion of the finished product than the meat listed first.

Canned (Retort Sterilised)

Ingredients are ground, mixed, and filled into cans which are sealed under partial vacuum. The sealed cans are then heated in a retort (pressure cooker) at 115-121°C for a set time to achieve commercial sterility, killing bacteria including Clostridium botulinum. The product is cooked inside the can, so the food retains its moisture (typically 70-85%). Because the can is hermetically sealed before cooking, no chemical preservatives are required for shelf stability. Canned food can use fresh meat as a primary ingredient since there is no need to pre-dry it.

Pouch (Retort Sterilised)

Pouches use the same retort sterilisation process as canned food, but in a flexible laminated package instead of a rigid can. The thinner profile of a pouch allows heat to penetrate faster, which can mean shorter cooking times and potentially less heat exposure than a traditional can. The food is sealed and pressure-cooked inside the pouch. Like canned food, no preservatives are needed while sealed, and moisture content is typically 70-85%. Pouches tend to be single-serve portions.

Gently-Cooked (Fresh, Frozen)

Gently-cooked food is made from fresh meat and organs cooked at low temperatures, well below the heat used to extrude kibble or retort a can, then frozen to preserve it without synthetic preservatives. It is fed thawed and sits at around 70 to 78% moisture, close to a wet diet. The gentle cooking step is what separates it from raw frozen food, which is never heated. Recipes in this format are typically single-protein and high in named meat.

Air-Dried

Raw ingredients are slowly dehydrated using circulating air at low temperatures (typically 60-80°C) over an extended period, often 10 hours or more. This gradually removes moisture to around 10-14% while the lower temperatures aim to preserve more of the natural nutrients and enzymes compared to high-heat extrusion. The result is a dense, jerky-like product that is shelf-stable without refrigeration. Because air-drying can handle high inclusions of fresh meat, these products typically have shorter, more meat-focused ingredient lists than kibble.

Freeze-Dried

Raw ingredients are first frozen at extremely low temperatures, then placed in a vacuum chamber where the ice is removed through sublimation, converting directly from solid to gas without passing through a liquid state. This process occurs at very low temperatures with minimal heat exposure, preserving the nutritional profile, flavour, and structure of the raw ingredients more effectively than any heat-based method. The result is a lightweight, shelf-stable product with very low moisture (typically 2-5%) that can be rehydrated before feeding.

Steam-Dried (Steamed & Oven-Dried)

Ingredients are first gently steamed, then oven-dried at moderate temperatures to reduce moisture and create a shelf-stable product. This method sits between kibble and air-dried in terms of processing intensity. It uses lower temperatures and pressure than extrusion, but involves more heat than air-drying alone. Steam-dried products typically use meal-based proteins and can accommodate a wider range of ingredients than air-drying, including legumes and starches, while still avoiding the extreme conditions of extrusion.

Raw-Frozen

Raw frozen food is made from fresh meat, organs and ground bone that is never cooked. It is formed into patties or portions and kept frozen to preserve it without synthetic preservatives, then fed thawed at high moisture, typically 65 to 78%, close to the water content of fresh prey. Unlike air-dried and freeze-dried food, which also starts raw but then has its moisture removed to become shelf-stable, raw frozen food keeps all of its moisture and stays frozen until use. The absence of any cooking step is what separates it from gently-cooked food.

Why This Matters

Processing is not inherently good or bad. Retort sterilisation makes canned food safe to store for years without preservatives. Extrusion makes kibble affordable and shelf-stable. Freeze-drying preserves nutrients closest to raw but at a higher cost. Each method involves trade-offs between convenience, nutrition, shelf life, and price.

What matters is understanding those trade-offs. A kibble listing "Chicken" as its first ingredient may contain less chicken in the finished product than a canned food listing it second, because the chicken lost most of its weight as water during extrusion while the canned product retained it. The ingredient list tells you what went into the factory. The processing method tells you what came out.

On KibbleGuide, every product shows its processing method inline so you can factor it into your comparison alongside the ingredient list and guaranteed analysis.

Sources

[1] Australian Standard AS 5812:2023. Manufacturing and marketing of pet food.

[2] Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO). Official Publication.

[3] Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. "Why you shouldn't judge a pet food by its ingredient list." 2016.

Processing descriptions are based on standard industry manufacturing practices and publicly available technical documentation from equipment manufacturers and food science literature.