Analytical Method for Sugar Profile in Pet Food and Animal Feeds by High-Performance Anion-Exchange Chromatography with Pulsed Amperometric Detection

There is a need for a standardized, accurate, rugged, and consistent method to measure for sugars in pet foods and animal feeds. Many traditional standard sugar methods exist for other matrixes, but when applied in collaborative studies there was poor agreement and sources of error identified with those standard methods. The advancement in technology over the years has given us the ability to improve on these standard methods of analysis. A method is described here that addresses these common issues and was subjected to a single-laboratory validation to assess performance on a wide variety of pet foods and animal feeds. Of key importance to the method performance is the sample preparation before extraction, type of extraction solvent, postextraction cleanup, and, finally, optimized chromatography using high-performance anion exchange chromatography with pulsed amperometric detection. The results obtained from the validation demonstrate how typical issues seen with these matrixes can influence performance of sugar analysis. The results also demonstrate that this method is fit-for-purpose and can meet the challenges of sugar analysis in pet food and animal feeds to lay the foundation for a standardized method of analysis.