Five minutes with our Product Development team

KatKin TeamOct 21, 2026 · 3 min read

Ever wondered what goes into creating a KatKin recipe?

To celebrate the launch of our new Smooth and Shredded textures, we sat down with Sandra and Fiona from our Product Development team to learn more about how our recipes come to life.

From perfecting the texture to putting recipes through their paces in taste tests (yes, we really do try them!), we’re finding out what it takes to create food that’s not only nutritionally complete but gets cats excited for mealtimes, too.

Here’s what they had to say.

Two women smiling against a white wall; one in a lime green shirt labeled as Product Development Lead, the other in a green sweater as Product Development Scientist.

How do you decide which recipes to create next?

"We start by understanding what cats and cat parents need, using customer feedback, insights from our existing recipes and market trends to identify opportunities.

Working closely with our Product Strategy and Marketing teams, we combine these insights with palatability science to guide product development.

This could mean creating a new recipe, introducing a different texture or improving something we already make. Smooth and Shredded are great examples of how we’re giving cats more choice beyond just flavour."

2. How many attempts does it take to get a recipe right?

"A simple recipe change might take 3–5 iterations, while a more complex one could take 30 or more!

We test everything from ingredients to our processes, making and testing each small change before moving on to the next iteration to make sure we get the recipe just right."

3. What’s one thing you won’t compromise on when creating a recipe?

"The two most important things are nutrition and palatability.

Every recipe needs to meet cats’ nutritional needs while also being something they genuinely enjoy eating.

We put a lot of work into getting both right, because even the best nutritional profile only makes a difference if cats actually eat and enjoy it."

4. What’s the hardest part of getting a recipe right?

“Getting everything to work together: nutrition, taste, texture and how we make it.”

5. Do you really taste-test every recipe?

"Yes!

We taste test everything, even batches that aren’t part of an active development project.

This helps us assess flavour and texture, establish the sensory profile of each recipe and make sure we’re maintaining consistent quality.

Of course, what tastes good to us doesn’t necessarily taste good to cats, which is why palatability and feeding trials are such an important part of our development process, too."