Study tests organic acids to curb Salmonella in raw dog diets

A newly published Animals study offers fresh data on one of raw pet food’s biggest unresolved issues: how to reduce Salmonella risk without cooking the product. The October 14, 2026 paper evaluated encapsulated and non-encapsulated citric and lactic acids in a refrigerated raw meat-based diet matrix for dogs, and found that acid-treated patties produced substantially greater Salmonella reductions during cold storage than untreated controls. In the strongest-performing groups, reductions reached about 3.1 to 4.1 logs over 22 days at 4 °C. (mdpi.com)

The backdrop is a steady rise in interest in raw meat-based diets, despite long-running veterinary and public health concerns. CDC says raw pet food can make pets and people sick because uncooked animal proteins can carry pathogens such as Salmonella and Listeria, and notes that freezing, freeze-drying, and dehydrating reduce germs but do not eliminate all of them. The AVMA likewise discourages feeding raw or undercooked animal-sourced proteins to dogs and cats because of risks to both animal and human health. (cdc.gov)

Those concerns are not theoretical. FDA’s outbreak and advisory page documents repeated actions involving raw pet food contamination, including advisories in September 2024 involving Answers Pet Food and Darwin’s Natural Selections, and another in September 2025 involving Darwin’s BioLogics dog food, all tied to Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes. That recent enforcement history helps explain why manufacturers and veterinary stakeholders are looking for non-thermal interventions that can fit raw product formats. (fda.gov)

In the new study, the researchers tested several acid treatments in raw patties inoculated with three Salmonella strains at high challenge levels. The treatment set included 1.0% encapsulated lactic acid, 1.0% encapsulated citric acid, and several 0.5%/0.5% combinations pairing encapsulated and raw acids. According to the article summary, combinations outperformed individual encapsulated acids, and longer refrigerated storage was associated with greater bacterial reduction. The authors also modeled inactivation with a Weibull approach and concluded that encapsulated organic acids can inhibit Salmonella growth and survival in refrigerated raw meat-based diets for dogs. (mdpi.com)

The findings line up with earlier work from the same research stream. A 2023 Journal of Food Protection paper on acidulants in raw meat-based diets for dogs reported that dry-plated acids were generally more effective against Salmonella than encapsulated acids, while also noting that encapsulated citric and lactic acids could improve microbial safety and preserve patty quality. Taken together, the newer Animals paper appears to extend that work by focusing on combinations and refrigerated survival in a raw diet matrix intended for dogs. That’s an inference based on the overlap in authors, subject matter, and reported interventions. (sciencedirect.com)

Expert reaction specific to this paper was limited at the time of writing, but the broader industry and veterinary response to raw diets remains divided. Mainstream veterinary and public health bodies continue to emphasize zoonotic risk, while some raw-feeding advocates argue that contamination is not unique to raw products and that risk can be managed through sourcing and handling. Even so, recent reviews continue to document contamination concerns in commercial raw meat-based diets, including Salmonella, Campylobacter, and other enteric pathogens. (avma.org)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, this study is useful less as an endorsement of raw feeding and more as a signal about where product safety innovation may be heading. If acid blends can reliably reduce pathogen burden, manufacturers may have a more practical hurdle technology to pair with sanitation, sourcing controls, environmental monitoring, and consumer handling instructions. But the study doesn’t erase the core clinical conversation: raw diets still carry zoonotic risk, and that risk extends beyond the pet to the household. For clinics, that means counseling pet parents not only on nutrition, but also on infection control, especially when young children, older adults, pregnant people, or immunocompromised individuals are in the home. (mdpi.com)

What to watch: The next steps will likely be validation beyond laboratory challenge studies, including commercial-scale performance, effects on palatability and shelf life, and whether manufacturers or regulators treat these acid systems as sufficient mitigation on their own or only as one layer in a broader food safety program. FDA’s continuing scrutiny of raw pet food suggests the regulatory bar will remain high. (fda.gov)