Shared Values, Vision Launch Long-Term Relationship.

“The design-build of DogStar Kitchens is something that we are extremely proud of, and its success would not have been possible without our partnership with Gray,” said Frank Burdzy, former president and CEO of Champion Petfoods.

Modern Food Processing at Its Best

Champion Petfoods places the utmost importance on product quality and recognized a similar commitment in Gray’s design and construction of facilities. This 371,000 s.f. operation was purpose-built from the ground up to advance Champion’s Biologically Appropriate™, Fresh Regional Ingredient, and Never Outsourced mission.

Before DogStar was complete, Champion asked Gray to add a third production line to further its mandate and keep up with growing demand in the U.S. and Latin America. The overall operation features custom-designed kitchens for the company’s award-winning dog and cat food brands, ACANA and ORIJEN.

The kitchens include state-of-the-art technology designed to optimize processes and are outfitted with a custom-built twin extruder that is the first of its kind in North America. To ensure the plant manufacturers premium quality products, DogStar is engineered and designed to meet the same food safety standards required for the manufacturing of human foods. For greater monitoring and quality assurance, Allen Bradley hardware and software systems allow all cooking data from start to finish to be displayed in real time in the kitchen control center. Clean-in-Place (CIP), an automated system which ensures the proper time, temperature, and turbulence for cleaning, is utilized throughout the operation.

The state-of-the-art DogStar kitchens were designed, constructed, and commissioned by Gray in just 14 months—from 0% design to 100% test runs of new recipes. Full production began in early January 2016. In addition to earning Safe Quality Food (SQF) and Safe Feed/Safe Food (SFSF) certifications, Champion’s new facility was awarded one of the highest food safety achievements in the world—the Global Market Program Award from the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI).

Following its completion, the project received honors from the Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA) as well as Kentucky’s Martha Layne Collins Leadership Award.