What is ‘Ash’ and why is it in dog treats?

At Dogs Delight we regularly send our treats to be analysed so that we comply with DEFRA
regulations.

The lab has done a full nutritional analysis of each and every treat variety we make to ensure our
customers have all the information they need to decide which treats would be best for their dog.

On each pack, you will see the amount of fat, protein and fibre per 100g pouch.
This information is required to be on every pet food label.

For those dogs who need a special diet it can be very helpful to know the fat content of the treats
and most of them are less than 5% fat.

In addition to these nutrients, we also include a value for ash on the label so we thought it would be
good to take a look at what ash actually is!

What is Ash?

I am sometimes asked why I would put ash into our treats and this is a perfectly reasonable question.
The fact is the definition of ‘ash’ in the food industry is a little different to the definition with which most customers are familiar.

When ash is used in relation to our treats it means minerals such as iron, calcium, phosphorous, zinc
and copper etc. So when you see ash on our labels it a crude measurement of the total amount of
minerals present in that variety of treat.

It’s called ash because of how it is determined in the laboratory. Samples of each treat variety are put into a furnace and burned until they reach a constant weight. This means that the only things left are the things that wont burn, the minerals.

All of the organic materials like fat, protein and fibre will have completely burned away.

So we don’t add ash to the treats, it’s what is left when everything else burns away during the laboratory analysis and represents the total amount of minerals present.