Instinct Pet Food Awarded Lincoln Manufacturer of the Year

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Press release: Instinct Pet Food

Instinct Pet Food, The Raw Brand, has been recognized as the Manufacturer of the Year by the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce. The award recognizes the year’s most visionary and community-driven businesses and individuals, highlighting their contributions to the community.

Instinct is a premium, natural pet food brand that produces raw food for dogs and cats in convenient, safe and easy to feed meals. These products are made with raw meat, fruits and vegetables that are minimally processed and never cooked, keeping more nutrients intact than conventional pet foods. Their frozen and freeze-dried manufacturing facilities in Lincoln, Nebraska.

“Pet parents’ ongoing desire to find the healthiest and most nutritious food for their pets has driven our extreme growth and success,” said Robbie Swanson, Director of Production, Instinct. “Two years ago, we were a small company producing 10 million pounds of raw food. We’re going to be close to 50-60 million pounds by 2025. We’re proud to have hired 35 new people this year at our facility and expect to hire another 20-30 next year before building our expansion.”

Instinct has a new manufacturing expansion planned in Lincoln which will enable increased production, employment, safety and sustainability in its manufacturing processes. The new facility will be designed to be LEED Certified, making it one of the few LEED Certified pet food manufacturing facilities in the U.S., and will approximately double the company’s employment in Lincoln.

“We are very honored to get this prestigious award,” said Robbie Swanson, Director of Production, Instinct. “Lincoln is our home. It’s been our home for 20 years. When we looked to expand the plant there was no other place we’d rather be than Lincoln, Nebraska.”

Instinct’s manufacturing facilities are committed to safety and quality. Instinct is the only raw pet food company in North America to achieve an “Excellent” Safe Quality Food (SQF) Food Safety rating and an SQF Quality certification at their manufacturing facilities and they just received the honor for the second year in a row. Instinct facilities also uphold the strict standards set by the FDA FSMA (Food Safety Modernization Act) and use High Pressure Processing (HPP) to ensure raw recipes are free of pathogens and safe for pets and pet parents, while retaining maximum nutrients.

(Photo courtesy Kathy Plunkett Photography)