I spotted this in a magazine a while back. What in the world? You may know, I carry a fair amount of disdain for commercially made dog kibble; preferring to feed my dogs real, actual food. So, this ad cracked me up and caught my interest enough to visit Purina’s website to try to get at, what on earth are they thinking??
I was willing to take their survey, this was my favorite question:
My heart goes out to the people in product marketing at Purina, and all other large kibble manufacturers. Do they have conversations like this in their corporate conference rooms?
Consumers don’t want crappy stuff in their dog food anymore.
But we rely on crappy stuff to remain profitable! It’s not like we could put quality ingredients in the food, then it would cost ten dollars a pound and nobody could afford it! What can we do?
Let’s break up the ingredient list, splitting apart all the grains and heavy mineral products, so it doesn’t look like the food is predominantly grain and chemical additives when measured by weight, but rather that the primary ingredient is meat.
Consumers don’t like the fact that we destroy all the nutrients when we super-cook this mystery slop, so then we have to add them all back in in chemical form to meet the AAFCO standards. And, consumers are skittish about chemistry words that are hard to read or recognize in an ingredient list.
Let’s separate those out into a different paragraph in smaller font. And trot out the “essential nutrients” and “complete and balanced” phrases, those have worked for us for decades!! We send the message “trust us, these nutrients are essential, we know best, we must add them in because you are unaware that they occur naturally in real, unadulterated food!”
People want human-grade ingredients in their dog food, so they’re certain it’s not road kill or other weird stuff. They are also getting averse to corn and soy, because it’s in so many products. Plus, people don’t like wheat anymore- the gluten thing…
But our kibble supply chain is so huge, we can’t be sure there isn’t road kill, or euthanized horses, dogs and cats from veterinary sources in there. Who knows what’s mixed in those rendering trucks? We can never make the claim for our kibble that it’s human-grade, it would cost too much to source it. And we can certainly never depart from our gold-standards, corn, wheat and soy. How about we distract from the issue of the protein source in the kibble by making a gel, like a fancy sports gel, that you can spooge on top of the kibble? That can be made with human-grade ingredients! And we can say “no corn, wheat and soy” here! Never mind that the majority of our product line is full of meat by-products, corn, wheat and soy!
Yes, now you’re onto something, Bob! Let’s call it a “puree” (which sounds so pure), and show marketing images that look like the leaf design on the top of an artisan café latte!
Purchasers today are often steering clear of GMO products.
Now you’ve gone too far, Bob! There is no way in hell we can make a product that doesn’t rely on GMO ingredients, and still remain profitable. Just forget you even said that out loud, Bob! I’m not putting that in the meeting minutes!
Consumers are wary of anything modern, chemical-ey, or or manufacturing-ey sounding. How can we convince them we’re none of those things?
If we make old-fashioned looking pen drawings of fish and farm animals, juxtapositioned with photo images of fresh fruits and vegetables, it will make the product seem more retro, back to the good old days, when things were pure and wholesome. Before we learned about mass-manufacturing and processing of food that can be shelf-stable for years.
Consumers are concerned about confinement animal feeding operations these days. Plus. they don’t like the idea of grains and other commodities being processed into their component parts.
We will name one of the products “Ranch Raised Lamb and Whole Barley”! Because people feel a lot better about a lamb raised at a ranch rather than a feed lot! And whole barley sounds a heck of a lot better than barley waste by-products derived from the human food chain!
Health-conscious athletes are used to “energy bars and gels” nowadays, and associate them with serious nutrition and enhanced athletic performance. They often perceive these ingredients to be superior than nature’s whole foods.
Let’s make a dog “energy gel” that leverages this consumer bias!
Consumers often apply their own palate sensibilities to their dog’s food. Though most dogs don’t mind soggy kibble a bit, humans don’t like the idea of a crunchy food becoming soggy.
We will make a gel, that promises not to make kibble soggy!
Consumers are super busy, and they don’t want to be hassled with messy or complicated aspects of feeding their pets. They prioritize convenience, sanitation and neatness over other factors.
The gel pack solves this problem by not requiring the consumer to touch anything wet, sticky, real or otherwise messy.
LOL! A dog food puree in a foil pack! $5/day for a forty-pound dog! And this, my friends, is the state of the pet food industry today: turning on their heads to convince you that they offer something better than what’s already in your fridge. And getting more and more desperate and creative by the day.
November 9, 2015 at 8:25 pm
YUCK!!!
November 10, 2015 at 6:57 am
Funny, frightening, and sad, all at once. I have been out of the commercial kibble loop for a while and hadn’t seen /heard of this “food” before {shudder} and if it really is $5 a day for a 40 lb dog…well it’s sad that people have been so brainwashed – whole/real food is less expensive. And it cuts way back on the vet bills. Can’t remember the last time one of my dogs had a hot spot, for example (used to be a regular occurrence back in the Purina [et al.] days)
Thanks for the chuckle.
Maureen
November 11, 2015 at 5:15 am
mcfwriter- I know, right? It’s really fascinating to see the different directions the dog food industry is taking, as they struggle with this new consumer that’s health conscious, and worried about ingredients.
September 22, 2016 at 5:45 am
It’s funny that you said all this but didn’t actually reasearch too far into it. I have the Natural Beef and Apple Purée sitting right in front of me right now, so allow me to correct you. First of all, this specific one has ingredients to support healthy skin and coat, which will explain the last two ingredients. The package says that there is only 5 (but really seven) ingredients in this and they are water, beef, apples, oatmeal, brown rice, vitamin A supplement, and zinc sulfate. Also, this packet only costed me $1.88, and you feed half a packet for every 20 pounds per day, so a 40 pound dog would only cost you $1.88 a day, not $5. My dogs seem to enjoy this over their food, but my only concern with it is that it lists oatmeal as an ingredient; that’s great and all, but go look at the ingredients on a container of oatmeal in your cabinet and I can guarantee there is more than just one ingredient. I am also concerned with what is allowing this “all natural” product to have a shelf life of almost a year until you open it.
September 24, 2016 at 3:09 am
Mattie, I understand where you’re coming from wanting to make sure your dog gets good nutrients. But, if you were to just feed your dog actual beef, apples, oatmeal, and brown rice, along with other whole and diverse foods, you’d be feeding ingredients that support healthy skin and coat already, and much more, at a much lower price. $1.88 could buy two full meals for a 40 lb dog using whole foods. So, why pay that much just for a “topping” made of ingredients of questionable origin, that are processed into a goop where it’s not even clear if the nutrients are still digestible, or whether they have been destroyed by the processing (into a product that has a year’s shelf life, as you point out)? And if you feel you need to add these extra nutrients, is it because you don’t have confidence that your dog’s base diet already has adequate nutrition?
September 24, 2016 at 8:36 am
Oh no, I trust my dogs food completely and they are very happy and healthy on it, I did not buy it for that reason at all. I bought it mainly because I saw it at the store in its weirdly eye catching packaging and was very curious about it, and since it was only $2 I went ahead and bought it so I could do research on it. My dogs never ate it, I actually gave it away earlier today to a neighbor because I am still worried about the chemicals in it. But if for some reason my dogs start to not want to eat as good as they do, I might look into, like you said, homemade toppings that follow the same idea. I mainly just wanted to correct you when you said it was $5 per meal when it’s only about $2 per day.
September 24, 2016 at 3:40 pm
Mattie, I did research the price online at the time, but that was a year ago, so perhaps they have found that the $5 price point is too high, and have lowered it.
If you are interested in making your own dog food using whole food ingredients, there are many great books out there and of course resources online. Here is a blog post I wrote a long time ago about what I feed:
https://colliefarm.wordpress.com/2008/06/26/dog-food/
You will never have problems with dogs’ appetites if you make food from scratch, partly because it’s delicious, and also because you can adjust it for each dog’s individual tastes. I have been feeding homemade food for about 17 years, and would never go back to kibble. I believe they perform soooo much better on whole foods, all the “normal” health problems like fleas, dirty teeth, gross poop, and stinky dog smell go away, and I believe they live a lot longer too. I found myself, and I know others have too, when you switch from kibble to whole foods, you may have thought your dogs were healthy before, but they will look way better once you get them off kibble. Kibble is basically like feeding Doritos every day, it’s mostly grain byproducts, with junk meat byproducts added, then processed to the point where much of the nutrition and bioavailability is destroyed….