How modern ornamental fish food is produced at JBL

The JBL plant in Neuhofen/Pfalz has one of the most modern and sustainable fish food production facilities in the world. We would like to give you an idea of how the manufacturing process works.

Aquarium facility in the JBL Laboratory

The ideal composition for a particular food is determined by specialists for the respective fish species and draws upon specialist literature, internet research, first hand experience with the species in the JBL Research Department aquariums and observations made on JBL expeditions.

View into extruder hall

In this formula the ingredients are mixed together to form a "mash" and passed on to the production line to make flakes or extrudates (granulates, wafers, sticks). The production plant is located in Neuhofen in a 3,500 sqm large and 17 m high hall.

Flake roller

For flakes, the food mash is applied to a 15,000 kg flaker roll, rolled flat and "scraped off" in one giant flake. This is crushed and mixed with other flake types until the right flake mixture and size is achieved.

Filling in tins

The flake mixture is filled into tins by computer, labelled, weighed, sealed, checked and shrink-wrapped. It is then ready for dispatch.

Open extruder

For extrudates, the food mash is pressed through a (sieve-like) die with the help of "screw conveyors" and then cut off. The size of the holes in the sieve determines the diameter of the granulate, stick or wafer. The length of a stick or granule is determined by the timing of the cutting.

Vitamin-adding coating

The vitamins have already been added to the food in the mash and are able to withstand the subsequent processing.

Air drying

After that, extrudates move on to drying. Here, an in-house development is used to dry all extrudates very gently and quickly on an air bed.

Labelling

Only now are the extrudates ready to be canned. The process is then the same as for flake food.

Tablet production

Food tablets are mechanically pressed together into small moulds from pure food, without glue or binding agents. They are then dried, deburred and weighed. Then they go to the filling line to be filled into tins.

Quality control

During production and filling, samples are taken every hour to check the composition, moisture and weight in the JBL laboratory. Packaged tins may only be dispatched after they have been approved by JBL Quality Control.

Climatic chamber display

In addition, a certain quantity of tins from each production batch is placed in climate cabinets which simulate the climatic conditions of different countries. This means that even months later it is possible to check whether everything is OK when stored at 50 °C in desert countries or in tropical countries with 90 % humidity.

A word about cookies before we continue

The JBL Homepage also uses several types of cookies to provide you with full functionality and many services: We require technical and functional cookies to ensure that everything works when you visit this website. We also use cookies for marketing purposes. This ensures that we recognise you when you visit our extensive site again, that we can measure the success of our campaigns and that the personalisation cookies allow us to address you individually and directly, adapted to your needs - even outside our website. You can determine at any time - even at a later date - which cookies you allow and which you do not allow (more on this under "Change settings").

The JBL website uses several types of cookies to provide you with full functionality and many services: Technical and functional cookies are absolutely necessary so that everything works when you visit this website. In addition, we use cookies for marketing purposes. You can determine at any time - even at a later date - which cookies you allow and which you do not (more on this under "Change settings").

Our data protection declaration tells you how we process personal data and what purposes we use the data processing for. tells you how we process personal data and what purposes we use the data processing for. Please confirm the use of all cookies by clicking "Accept" - and you're on your way.

Are you over 16 years old? Then confirm the use of all cookies with "Noticed" and you are ready to go.

Choose your cookie settings

Technical and functional cookies, so that everything works when you visit our website.
Marketing cookies, so that we recognize you on our pages and can measure the success of our campaigns.

PUSH messages from JBL

What are PUSH messages? As part of the W3C standard, web notifications define an API for end-user notifications that are sent to the user's desktop and/or mobile devices via the browser. Notifications appear on the end devices as they are familiar to the end user from apps installed on the device (e.g. emails). Notifications appear on the end user’s device, just like an app (e.g. for emails) installed on the device.

These notifications enable a website operator to contact its users whenever they have a browser open - it doesn’t matter whether the user is currently visiting the website or not.

To be able to send web push notifications, all you need is a website with a web push code installed. This allows brands without apps to take advantage of many of the benefits of push notifications (personalised real-time communications at just the right moment).

Web notifications are part of the W3C standard and define an API for end user notifications. A notification makes it possible to inform the user about an event, such as a new blog post, outside the context of a website.

JBL GmbH & Co. KG provides this service free of charge, and it is easy to activate or deactivate.