This article was published in the May/June 2026 issue of Pet Food Processing. Read it and other articles from this issue in our May/June digital edition.
Most dogs and cats do not regularly have their teeth brushed, and pet parents who do brush their pet’s teeth generally don’t find it to be a positive bonding experience with their four-legged family members. Given the difficulties, it’s not surprising that veterinarians and animal health experts classify dental disease as an epidemic among pets.
In fact, Greg Reinhart, Ph.D., chief scientific officer with Pet Honesty, said 80% of dogs over three years old and 70% of cats over two years old have dental disease.
“Dental disease can cause more far-reaching consequences than just yellow teeth and bad breath. When dental issues lead to gum inflammation and periodontal disease, problems in the rest of the body can develop,” said Natalie Williams, director of nutrition and product formulation at Petcurean.
“Poor oral health has been associated with impacts on organs like the heart, liver and kidneys over time,” said Natalie Williams, Petcurean.
“This inflammation can affect the body systemically, including continuous low-grade inflammation, and allows pathogenic oral bacteria easy entry into the bloodstream,” Williams said. “Poor oral health has been associated with impacts on organs like the heart, liver and kidneys over time. From an immune perspective, maintaining a healthy oral environment reduces unnecessary inflammatory burden and helps the immune system function more efficiently.”
Joe Roetheli, Ph.D., co-founder and chief executive officer of Pet’s Best Life, added, “Once the gums start bleeding from periodontal disease, gram-negative bacteria get into the circulatory system and make it ‘a racetrack.’ Those bacteria know exactly where to go to get to the vital organs.”
Filling market gaps
Given the pervasive and serious nature of dental health issues, there are many unmet needs in the market that pet nutrition companies are working to address.
Williams said those needs include products that promote a strong immune system to strengthen oral health, as well as those that support a healthy gut biome and yield oral health benefits as a result. Additionally, she said it’s important for companies to look at how to integrate mechanical, chemical and systemic oral health systems to create a multi-faceted approach to improving dental health.
To support a strong immune system, Petcurean has launched Go! Solutions Dental + Immune Health Chicken + Salmon Recipes with Grains for dogs and cats. In studies, these products have been found to reduce bad breath in cats by 19.55% and in dogs by 45.62%. They also limit plaque in cats by 43.47% and in dogs by 21.56%, as well as limit gingivitis in cats by 58.14% and in dogs by 32.8%.
To develop the products, Petcurean worked with a board-certified veterinary nutritionist in a collaborative process.
Studies on Petcurean’s Go! Solutions Dental + Immune Health show the food can reduce bad breath in cats by 19.55% and limit plaque and gingivitis by 43.47% and 58.14%, respectively.
| Source: Petcurean“From there, our expert extrusion operators at our kibble manufacturing partner’s facility fine-tune the process to achieve the precise texture and density needed for effective mechanical cleaning during chewing,” Williams said. “Finally, we partnered with an industry-leading laboratory to conduct controlled dental trials, validating that the finished product performs as intended.”
Some of the active ingredients Petcurean included in the products are sodium hexametaphosphate (SHMP) to help prevent plaque formation and postbiotics to support gut health and a strong immune system. Ingredients rich in fiber including Miscanthus grass, grains and psyllium husk also play an important role in the mechanical aspects of clean teeth.
Pet Honesty has also sought a multi-faceted approach to dental health that combines the use of mechanical or chewing action and chemical support with oral health ingredients. The result was the creation of Brush Buddies, which includes the postbiotic Lactiplantibacillus plantarum, and a type of kelp called Ascophyllum Nodosum that reduces plaque and has a texture that promotes longer chew times in dogs.
Reinhart said calcium binders sodium acid pyrophosphate and hexametaphosphate are other active ingredients used in Brush Buddies to help further reduce tartar formation and accumulation.
Additionally, Wellness Pet Company offers Wellness WHIMZEES, endorsed by the Veterinary Oral Health Council (VOHC). The WHIMZEES for dogs include six primary plant-based ingredients chosen to create a firm, chewy texture.
Introducing new ingredients
As pet nutrition brands seek to bring more dental health products to market, suppliers are innovating new ingredients to support the oral microbiome.
WHIMZEES Natural Dental Treats for cats feature a crunchy, porous texture that works on cats’ teeth like a toothbrush.
| Source: Wellness Pet Company“We’re seeing a lot of exciting innovation, especially around microbiome science and functional ingredients,” said Erin Schroeder, DVM, a pet education partner for Wellness Pet Company. “There’s growing interest in products that go beyond mechanical cleaning to actively support oral health at a microbial level.”
Through a strategic collaboration, Stratum Nutrition has introduced OraCMU™, an oral probiotic designed to target the bacteria that produce volatile sulfur compounds (VSCs), which are the cause of bad breath (halitosis).
“With the oral microbiome you really want the good bacteria to be there all of the time to help prevent the growth and colonization of the bad bacteria that cause periodontitis and other oral issues, including halitosis,” said Marie Parks, ingredient science specialist with Stratum Nutrition. “With OraCMU, it does colonize in the oral cavity, not just working on the digestive aspect.”
OraCMU can be placed on top of food and given with meals as a supplement, and the product blocks certain bacteria from surviving and producing VSCs.
“You can’t just look at if the teeth look clean,” Parks said. “They could be nice and white, but [the pet could] still have bad bacteria in the oral cavity. It’s a matter of making sure that the oral microbiome is in balance, as well as incorporating other strategies like chew toys or treats that help to scrape off the plaque.”
ADM has developed PRIOME® Oral Care, a product that uses heat-treated postbiotic Lactiplantibacillus plantarum CECT 9161. Lindsay Sumners, Ph.D., director of creation, design, and development for Pet and Animal Wellbeing at ADM, said when clinically studied in dogs the ingredient was shown to reduce the formation of dental plaque and support development of oral microbiomes generally associated with good oral health.
Brush Buddies help dogs scrub, brush and floss teeth through their unique design and chewy texture.
| Source: Pet Honesty“We really see an interest from pet parents in more preventive and non-invasive oral care solutions,” Sumners said. “Toothbrushing is very much the gold standard in pet dental care. It can be challenging for pet owners to fit brushing into their everyday routine. I think that’s where there’s space for there to be proactive dental health solutions to go on top of toothbrushing.”
PRIOME Oral Care is versatile and maintains functionality throughout different types of processing, from hot extrusion to retort processing.
“The application science research has shown that postbiotics are going to maintain functionality and stability throughout manufacturing,” Sumners said. “This means you are going to be able to include that postbiotic in a lot of pet applications.”
Sumners said traditionally there hasn’t been extensive ingredient innovation in the pet dental space, but with PRIOME OC there’s more potential. She said because the product is effective without the need for mechanical action, formulators can include it in a new range of dental formats from powders to soft chews, as well as in dental sticks or chews, combining chewing action with a postbiotic.
“Interacting with and modulating the oral microbiome is a different approach, and it’s where the success lies in terms of PRIOME OC helping support overall dental health,” Sumners said.
Ensuring effectiveness
With what he estimates to be 57 million dogs in the United States suffering from dental disease, Roetheli said the dental health epidemic has only grown in recent years as the number of pets has increased.
“There’s a lot of products out there that have taken the route of ‘let’s just put dental on the product,’ and they don’t really have data to share with dog owners that it really does work,” Roetheli said.
Pet’s Best Life highlights the efficacy of its Yummy Combs product through the VOHC seal and research that shows the product’s ability to maintain clean teeth. Studies using the dirty tooth model have also measured the product’s effectiveness in removing tartar, Roetheli said.
“Getting to where there is more validation is really important,” Roetheli said. “It would be interesting for someone in the regulatory climate to go out and test products and see what they do and don’t do because there is nothing consistent. We have the VOHC seal on ours, and we’ve had the dirty tooth study conducted.”
With its honeycomb-shaped design, Yummy Combs flosses and brushes both upper and lower teeth across 360 degrees and processes up to 200 scraping surfaces. The product was also clinically proven to remove at least 26% of tartar and freshen breath by 45%. It is made from chicken, honey fish oil, and a blend of vitamins and minerals without any artificial flavors, colors or preservatives.
The kibble in Petcurean’s Go! Solutions Dental + Immune Health recipes are manufactured to achieve precise texture and density for effective mechanical cleaning during chewing.
| Source: PetcureanConsumers are becoming more proactive instead of reactive when it comes to their pet’s health, and Parks said they understand that not every product advertising certain health benefits delivers those results. To ensure a dental health product will work, she recommends pet parents look for branded probiotic ingredients with population-specific studies at the researched doses.
“Postbiotics in general represent the future in terms of next-generation therapeutics,” Sumners said. “Their formulation versatility really allows for the promotion of development of unique pet supplement formations. In terms of research, it could be interesting to understand if there may be potential synergistic effects on oral health when combined with other functional ingredients.”
Caitilin Donohue, global marketing director for Pet and Animal Wellbeing at ADM, said addressing the underlying source of where oral health issues start on a proactive level will drive innovation in the future.
Overall, there is still plenty of room for additional research and development in pet dental health.
“There’s so much yet to be discovered on the different bacterial species that reside in the mouth, what impact they have on oral and overall body health, and ways to modulate them through pre-, pro- and postbiotics,” Reinhart said.
Reinhart said postbiotics are gaining attention because they are new, stable and have tremendous benefits, and research on these ingredients will advance.
Pet dental health is also poised to become a part of a wide variety of categories.
“We’ll see more integration of dental health into everyday nutrition rather than treating it as a separate category,” Schroeder said. “Ultimately, the goal is to make proactive dental care easier, more effective and more personalized.”
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