Patent ID: 7651708

Claim:
A method of producing an animal food product with a core and a shell at least partially covering said core, the method comprises the steps of: providing a core starting material that comprises, 20-100 parts by weight meat and/or meat components, 0-30 parts by weight added water, 0-25 parts by weight oil and/or fat, 0-15 parts by weight vitamins, minerals, salts, antioxidising agents, dyes and/or preservatives, 0-15 parts by weight vegetable fibres, 1-20 parts by weight humectants, and 0-8 parts by weight dried animal blood plasma; providing a shell starting material that comprises, 20-90 parts by weight vegetable and/or animal protein 0-30 parts by weight cereal, starch and/or dextrin, 0-50 parts by weight blood plasma, 0-30 parts by weight water 10-80 parts by weight cereal derivative and/or sugar or sugar derivative, and 0-10 parts by weight vitamins, minerals, salts, antioxidising agents, dyes and/or preservatives; (a1) producing core particles by mixing the core starting materials at ambient temperature, baking the resulting mixture, cooling the mixture, cutting the mixture into small pieces and cooling the mixture a second time, or (a2) producing core particles by mixing the starting core materials, forming a dough-like mass of the resulting mixture at room temperature and cutting the mixture into small pieces, and then (b) mixing the prepared core particles with the components of the shell in a coating pan whereby providing the core particles with a shell coating, baking or deep-frying the shell coated core particles and cooling the food product; wherein the water activity value (a w value) of the animal food product is 0.4-0.6.