Thank you to The American Feed Industry Association for putting together this valuable information and making it available to share. Follow the link to the AFIA website to find more information and resources.
​There are 5,715 animal feed mills and 517 pet food manufacturing facilities in the U.S. producing more than 236 million tons of finished feed each year. This number includes all commercial and integrated tonnage, but does not include on-farm feed manufacturers. The mill size varies tremendously from a small on-farm mixer to a modern, computerized system with few human operators making more than 1 million tons of feed each year for swine or poultry operations. Source: https://www.afia.org/feedfacts/industry-info, AFIA

Economic Impact of Animal Feed and Pet Food Manufacturing Industry, 2016
               944,227 jobs
               $297.1 billion in total sales including $102 billion in value-added and $55.9 billion in wages
               $22.5 billion to local, state and national taxes
 SOURCE: Decision Innovation Solutions, Oct. 2017

Lab testing and assurance
Quality assurance is a set of procedures that manufacturers follow to ensure all products are produced to achieve a desired level of quality. It begins with the examination of incoming ingredients. A manufacturing facility’s quality assurance, nutrition, procurement and production teams develop testing methods and frequencies to evaluate the quality of ingredients used throughout the process, and in finished feed products, which may include:
             Moisture content
                  Protein
                  Fat quality and quantity
                  Crude fiber
                  Mycotoxins
                  Pathogens
                  Other nutrients, and Other indicators of quality.
Source: https://www.afia.org/feedfacts/how-feed-is-made/