NEW

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.

Sensory wet cat food range

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.

Buy Sensory Smell
Sensory smell
Sensory taste

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.

Buy Sensory 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.

Buy Sensory Feel
Sensory feel

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.

Sensory cat wet food range

Signs of anticipation

 

food bowl  Instantly appearing as you’re preparing their food

voice waves  Being vocal by meowing and purring

Cat near human  Soliciting you by weaving around you

cat looking at the window  Reaching up or jumping on the kitchen counter

 

Cat eating and drinking

Signs of enjoyment while eating

 

Cat relaxed  A relaxed body posture

Cat lips  Licking or smacking their lips frequently during the meal

Cat ground A tail at rest, not thrashing against the ground

 

Cat wet food

Signs of enjoyment overall

 

clean bowl  Your cat's bowl is left spotlessly clean!

 

Cat mixed feeding

Mix it up! Make Sensory™ part of your mixed feeding routine

Why is a Mixed Feeding routine key for your cat’s health? For starters, cats tend to prefer wet food which better stimulates their sense of smell and boosts their appetite. Wet food also offers other health advantages such as hydration, urinary system support, less calories, and greater comfort for cats with oral sensitivities. Still, dry food presents important advantages too, like supporting oral health. Dry food can also remain in a bowl or a feeding toy without spoiling, allowing your cat to have continuous access to food throughout the day. A mix of both wet food and dry food therefore allows for the kind of variety that will keep your cat a healthy, enriched eater.

See our guide to changing your cat's diet.

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