SENSORY™: More than just a meal, an experience for cats
Have you ever wondered how your cat experiences the world? A cat’s senses are their gateway to the world. How those senses are stimulated ultimately determines how your cat feels. That means, mealtime and nutrition are important for their overall health. Keep reading to learn how you can offer your cat a better sensory experience and help to improve their wellbeing every day.
Understanding a cat's super senses
Felines are unique for many reasons, but the distinct nature of their senses is key to understanding how to enhance their wellbeing. Consider this: a feline’s sense of smell is 14 times more powerful than a human's. However, cat taste buds only total around 470, which means whilst cats can taste, it's not their strongest sense compared to humans who usually have over 9,000 taste buds. These are but a few sensorial particularities among cats that have been overlooked in pet nutrition, despite the great impact of the senses on their food preferences.
Until now.
Using our feline expertise and the latest research on cat food palatability, Royal Canin® has created an entire wet food range specifically designed to stimulate cats’ unique senses. Discover the three different products tailored to your cat’s smell, taste, and feel, that will offer variation, a sensorially-rich experience, and help support their overall wellbeing every day.
SENSORY™ SMELL
Stimulate their sense of smell
How strong is a cat's sense of smell? Cats possess up to 200 million odour-sensitive cells in the nose while humans only have 5 million. Given that developed sense of smell, your cat’s first contact with food is through their nose and all those powerful and numerous olfactive receptors, which puts a lot of pressure on that first aromatic impression! This initial contact is further enhanced by sniffing: the more your cat sniffs, the more molecules they can detect. If a cat is greatly attracted to their food’s aroma, they will sniff less and begin eating immediately, making mealtimes easier and more enjoyable. As a result, that first impression is key to ensuring the feeding ritual is smooth and facilitates the consumption of the right amount of energy for your cat, in addition to being enjoyable.
As a result, Royal Canin’s Sensory™ Smell formulas are crafted with an aromatic profile made from sustainable fish characterised by fatty, fruity, and nutty odours that are highly attractive to a cat’s sense of smell. The aroma profile has a composition technology that allows flavours to diffuse more rapidly and intensely around the food, making for a successful start to the meal and an overall immersive experience for your cat.
SENSORY™ TASTE
Unlock their sense of taste
Your cat's sense of taste isn't the strongest due to having few taste buds. So what can cats taste? With a uniquely specialised sense, they are particularly perceptive of subtle food flavours, especially umami. Umami is often described as a savoury taste that is found especially in meats. Amino acids are critical to obtaining an umami flavour, which is independent of the other four traditional basic tastes — sweet, sour, salty, and bitter. Because of their carnivorous predisposition, cats are sensitive to the meaty flavours associated with umami.
Royal Canin’s Sensory™ Taste formulas are crafted with a chicken taste characterised by toasted, meaty, sulfurous and caramelised hints that will stimulate your cat’s unique sense of taste.
SENSORY™ FEEL
Reinforce their sense of texture
During meals, the sensation of different textures in your cat’s mouth strongly influences their feeding experience. This sensory characteristic known as mouthfeel involves the detection of a wide range of physical stimuli inside the mouth. It involves a food’s entire physical and chemical interaction with the mouth from the first bite and initial perception on the palate, onto chewing, and the concluding act of swallowing. In other words, eating is a tactile experience as much, if not more, than a gustative one, for cats.
That’s why Royal Canin’s Sensory™ Feel improves mouthfeel, further stimulating your cat’s senses whilst bringing surprise and enrichment to mealtime. Its formulas are crafted with unique gravy and jelly textures that are creamier with a smoother coating that will last longer in your cat’s mouth. The unique texture also includes more roughly cut meaty chunks which appeal to cats and provide variation in textural sensations throughout your cat’s meal.
Discovering your cat is enjoying their meal
Enhance your cat whisperer capabilities! It’s possible to detect signs of meal approval long before the food reaches your cat’s bowl. Keep an eye on these meal appreciation indicators before, during, and after the meal.