Formulation, Nutritional Evaluation, and Storage Stability of Functional Nutri-Cereal and Chicken Powder-Based Biscuits for Companion Pet Nutrition

Abstract This study developed gluten-free functional biscuits for companion pets using malted pearl millet flour, malted green gram flour, chicken powder, egg white, and stevia. Five formulations (T1–T5) and a wheat flour control (C) were evaluated for proximate composition, physicochemical characteristics, antioxidant properties, fatty acid profile, phenolic compounds, amino acid composition, and storage stability. Significant differences (p < 0.05) were observed among formulations for nutritional composition, color attributes, texture, total phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC), antioxidant activity, peroxide value, and free fatty acids. Based on the overall nutritional, functional, and physicochemical characteristics, formulation T2 was selected as the optimum biscuit. UHPLC analysis identified eight phenolic compounds in T2, with quercetin (2.148 mg/g) and sinapic acid (2.018 mg/g) as the predominant compounds. GC–MS analysis revealed higher concentrations of beneficial fatty acids in T2, while amino acid profiling demonstrated increased levels of histidine, threonine, methionine, cysteine, tryptophan, and isoleucine compared with the control. During 56 days of storage in HDPE packaging, moisture, peroxide value, free fatty acids, and microbial counts increased significantly (p < 0.05), whereas T2 maintained acceptable microbial quality (2.55 × 102 CFU/mL) throughout storage. These findings show that T2 is a nutritionally superior, shelf-stable functional biscuit with potential for companion pet nutrition.