Nothing To Hide
At Pooch & Mutt we've got Nothing To Hide... but can all other pet food companies say the same?
Did you know that dog foods can say ‘chicken’ or ‘beef’ on the front but may only contain around 1% chicken or beef.
The labelling rules say that if you say "with" chicken/beef on the pack you only have to include 4% of that ingredient. 4%! That's like trying to buy a £25k car for £1k! That's why Baker's uses names like "Adult with tasty Beef and Vegetables". However, things get even worse than this. Baker's Adult with tasty Beef and vegetable lists ingredients as "Meat and animal derivatives (15%* in the chunk) *equivalent to 30% rehydrated meat and animal derivatives, with min, 4% beef". This means (as we understand it) that the 4% rule isn't being applied to the whole food, just 'the chunk'. Assuming that the chunk is half the food this leaves you with 2% beef in the food..... but wait, it gets worse!! When it says that 'the chunk' is 15%, but equivalent to 30% rehydrated, with min 4% beef this means that they use dehydrated beef and that the dehydrated beef only makes up 2%. If you only use 2% and the chunk is only half of what's in the box that means that you are left with 1% beef in a product that says beef on the front. That seems pretty misleading to us here at Pooch & Mutt. All our foods list the amount of Chicken/ Fish/ Turkey that is in the food, and we don't try and hoodwink customers by splitting the food into different 'chunks' or saying what the ingredient % would be if it was a different ingredient. We believe customers should know what they are getting. We've got nothing to hide.
Did you know that over 76% of the dog food sold in the UK is either own-brand or brands owned by the confectionery companies Mars & Nestle?
That's right. The makers of products like Mars bar, Twix, KitKat and Rolo, who are arguably responsible for the obesity crisis in humans, own most of the major pet food brands. The image below shows who owns what. When you bear in mind that Mars had to issue a statement saying that its cooking sauces (Dolmio and Uncle Ben's) contained so much fat and sugar that they should only be eaten 'occasionally' it makes you wonder about these companies being responsible for the food that you feed your dog every day. Pooch & Mutt is an independent company, so we can put your pet's wellness above shareholder profits.
Did you know that big pet food companies can change what they put in their food without telling customers or even changing the packaging?
Big companies list their ingredients using generic terms like "Meat and animal derivatives". The definition of this is "All the fleshy parts of slaughtered warm-blooded land animals, fresh or preserved by appropriate treatment, and all products and derivatives of the processing of the carcass or parts of the carcass of warm-blooded land animals". That's pretty vague! It means that the recipe can change with each batch depending on what is cheapest at the time. An article in The Independent highlighted how this can lead to animals falling ill with issues such as gastrointestinal problems and chronic diarrhoea. Pooch & Mutt lists all the ingredients on the bag, so you know what you are getting.
Video production credits:
Concept: Guy Blaskey at Pooch & Mutt
Produced & Directed by: Hound
Director of Photography: John Bretherton
Beagle: @pennyvalent
Dalmatian: @miss_nicoleoneill
Husky: @realjackhurrell
Doberman: @adamphillips20
Music producer: @biLLy
