Meat meal

Meat meal Glossary: Meat meal is an ingredient made by cooking and drying animal tissues, a process called rendering, which removes water to leave a concentrated, protein-rich powder. The defining feature is that concentration: because most of the moisture is already gone, meat meal contributes far more protein per gram of finished weight than a fresh, water-heavy meat does, which has important consequences for how it appears on a label (AAFCO, 2024). This is where the [ingredient order](/glossary/ingredient-order) can mislead. Since ingredients are listed by pre-cooking weight, a [fresh protein](/glossary/dehydrated-vs-fresh-protein) can rank high on the list largely because of its water content, while a meat meal that actually delivers more dry-matter protein sits lower, so a meal is not inherently inferior to fresh meat and is often the larger real protein contributor. Quality, however, varies considerably and depends entirely on the raw materials used: a named, single-species meal such as chicken meal is more informative than a generic meat meal, where the [AAFCO](/glossary/aafco) ingredient definitions allow a broader and less specified mix. For a premium buyer, the sensible reading is to look for named meals, to recognise that a meal high on the list signals genuine protein density, and to judge the recipe overall rather than reacting to the word meal itself. The protein it supplies still shows up only as [crude protein](/glossary/crude-protein) on the label, which does not reflect its quality. For more, see the [Petipedia glossary](/glossary).

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