Tuffy’s operates one manufacturing plant dedicated exclusively to pet foods in Perham, Minnesota. Their 16-acre campus produces NutriSource, Pure Vita, and Natural Planet diets for independent pet specialty retailers and Supreme, Tuffy’s Gold, and Tuffy’s Treat Company-branded products.
These brands meet the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) dog food nutrient profiles for all life stages.
Puppy Food
Tuffy’s Gold Premium Puppy Dry Dog Food offers superior nutrition in an easily digestible formula tailored to puppies from weaning until one year, meeting AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profiles requirements at all stages of life.
Tuffy’s Pet Foods’ story begins in Perham, Minnesota, where its founder, Darell Nelson, first fell from a tree as a young child, incurring injuries that would typically require hospitalization for most other kids his age. Instead, Darell persevered and founded Tuffy’s Pet Foods shortly after that.
Today, the company’s sprawling manufacturing campus produces six brands of complete and balanced pet diets and treats made with high-quality ingredients and has established an outstanding reputation as providing safe and dependable food options for pets.
Perham is home to Tuffy’s exclusive manufacturing plant and uses state-of-the-art equipment to develop and produce pet food backed by extensive research and quality testing using local growers. Tuffy also employs state-of-the-art treat production capabilities in Delano while being a member of the Pet Food Institute with natural preservatives as part of its formulas.
Adult Food
Tuffy’s brand of dog food is produced at its manufacturing plant in Perham, Minnesota. Employing over 300 workers at this site, this plant currently has the NutriSource, PureVita, and Natural Planet diets sold exclusively through pet specialty channels, as well as Supreme, Tuffy’s Gold, and other co-manufactured dry foods and semi-moist treats sold under this name. In addition to this facility in Minnesota, Tuffy’s also operates an advanced pet treat facility in Delano for treating our canines!
Darell Nelson established this family-owned company in 1964 after earning himself the moniker “Tuffy” after falling off a tree and landing on his head; he earned his nickname by immediately returning to playing after going straight to the hospital for treatment. Today, this family-run enterprise is one of the leading producers of premium pet foods – wet foods, baked foods, freeze-dried treats, and dog and cat food products.
KLN Family Brands owns and operates a facility producing canned products under their Natural Planet and PureVita brands.
Tuffy’s offers three adult diets that meet AAFCO nutritional profiles for maintenance and two for all life stages, each featuring moderate levels of chicken by-product meal – made up of the leftover pieces from slaughterhouses after all prime cuts have been removed – in its adult food products. In addition, Tuffy’s also adds brewer yeast and flaxseed as extra protein sources to its products.
Senior Food
Tuffy Gold Formula Kibble boasts above-average protein levels and low carb levels, boasting moderate meat content from chicken by-product meal, lamb meal, and brewers yeast (a byproduct of beer brewing), in addition to chelated minerals and flax seed.
Next on the list is turkey fat, an easily digestible and excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids. After that comes ground flaxseed, brewer’s dried yeast, and salt; while yeast is often added as flavoring for dog foods, it has also been linked with allergies and even life-threatening conditions like bloat in some instances.
Tuffy Pet Food Company has built an advanced facility to ensure their products adhere to the highest standards for quality and safety, using advanced pigging systems for cleaning and sanitizing production lines during production, as well as four-hour burn out cycles after each run of product transfer pipes containing product transfer pipes used during product transfer runs – this helps prevent bacteria build-up that could compromise food quality and compromise local economies by purchasing ingredients like grains and meat from area growers.
Dog Treats
Perham, Minnesota — three hours northeast of Minneapolis — is no stranger to Tuffy Nelson and KLN Family Brands products such as NutriSource, PureVita, and Natural Planet diets – plus other national brands produced here by Tuffy’s Pet Foods from their sprawling manufacturing campus covering nearly six city blocks in Perham.
This facility also operates a dry dog and cat food plant that produces Kibble for Tuffy’s, Supreme, and PureVita lines of products. Both facilities use a mix of grains and vegetables for optimal quality products and have multiple packaging lines; Thiele Technologies bags from BW Flexible Systems of Duncan, South Carolina, produce 11 to 50-lb bags, while the treated plant has two Parsons-Eagle small bag systems.
In its production process, Tuffy employs various pieces of equipment to offer an assortment of branded pet food, such as extruders, dryers, grinders, and mixing machines. All production is tested for bulk density, moisture levels, protein concentration levels, pH value, water activity level, and glycols/sorbates content before release for sale. In addition, third-party pathogen testing results must first be received.
NutriSource Choice Whitefish Meal & Rice Recipe dog food from this company is a grain-based formula with moderate levels of named by-product meal as the primary animal protein source. Carbs come mainly from whole grain ground corn and wheat middlings – though this combination may not be considered controversial due to corn’s allergy-causing properties in some dogs.
