Our Food System is Corrupt—and One Massive Part Is the Pet Food Industry. Here’s What We Need to Know.
By Stacey Lindsay
It was the early 2000s in San Francisco. Diana and David Vogel were living in the Mission District, and a food renaissance was happening. “Everybody wanted to know where their food came from,” says David. “They wanted to know about their farmer, the sources—and we were there and wrapped up by it all.”
At the time, Diana was working as a dog walker and in a pet store, and David was in the pet food manufacturing business. The couple, who were pet owners and submerged in what Diana calls “a dog community,” started thinking: Humans wanted to know about the how and why and who behind their food, but what about what went into their pets’ meals? These questions were fueled by their first-hand understanding of the unethical aspects of pet food manufacturing, from the heinous inclusion of meats (and parts) from euthanized animals to plastic ingredients. (One recent study found high levels of potentially toxic metals in various conventional dog foods.)
There is also the ubiquitous issue of greenwashing: providing misleading information to trick consumers into thinking a product is more natural, sustainable, or overall healthy than it truly is. “That was frustrating for us early on,” David says of the cryptic marketing of pet food. “You see the bag, you’re going to fill it, and you know that’s just not in there.”
So Diana and David did a radical thing. They began making dog food from scratch with whole, local ingredients—organic produce, humanely raised grass-fed raw meats—right in their San Francisco apartment and selling it to their surrounding community.
That is the creation story of Diana and David’s progressive raw dog and cat food company Smallbatch, which officially launched in 2005. It started small with 15 loyal customers and now is available nationwide via direct orders and local pet shops. “The worlds of food and quality and pets just made a lot of sense,” says Diana, who constantly fields emails and calls from customers that range from comments on how switching to pure pet food helped their pet overcome ailments to inquiries about all the hidden additives and fillers in dog food.
That transparency is key to what Diana and David do, and it’s what they advocate for daily. The issue with pet food is multifaceted, and, in many ways, parallel to issues with the broken food system. Feeding pets high-quality, humanely raised meats and organic produce are critical for good health. The same goes for avoiding potentially harmful ingredients that serve little to no nutritional value and only stretch a product so the company can make a bigger profit. “Where there’s profit, there’s always compromise,” says David. “And it happens in every sector of the natural food space—and pet food has a lot of gray areas. There’s no ingredient police.”
That is why Diana and David push for people to know what goes into their pet’s food—and where it’s sourced and the values of the company creating it. Here they offer us some main takes on what to know and what to look out for when sourcing pet nutrition.
Because knowing the story behind our animals’ food is, in many ways, activism toward a more transparent food system at-large—for both humans and animals.
#1: Ask questions. Diana and David cannot stress this enough. Pick up the phone or send a cold email to a company and ask about their sourcing, their practices, and their values. If a company is hesitant to offer detail, take this as a red flag. “We’ve even had store owners asking for receipts,” says Diana about their sourcing questions—which they happily hand over. “So when in doubt, trust your gut.”
#2: Look for wholesome ingredients. These include real meat that is ethically and humanely raised (not factory farmed); produce that is organic (ideally), and pure whole-derived supplements.
3#: Avoid cryptic fillers and additives. There is technical oversight of the pet food industry from the FDA and AAFCO (American Association of Feed Control Officials), but the main concentration goes toward making sure there is adequate nutrition present in the food with little to no regard for manufacturing and sourcing standards. Also, the FDA doesn’t even “get involved until something is wrong, or until something needs a recall,” says David. So this leaves many gateways for adulteration and the inclusion of cheap, unethical sources of food and additives. To steer clear of this, Diana and David recommend vetting ingredients and avoiding the following: factory-farmed meats, meat that has been mechanically separated (a huge problem in the raw pet food world, says David), pink slime, animal discards, synthetic preservatives, and synthetic vitamin packs.
#4: Don’t fall for the jargon. Greenwashing is real. And it’s everywhere. This goes for pet food. Human food. Personal care items. Beauty products. Everything. So just because something is deemed organic, natural, or—in the pet food world—raw, doesn’t mean it should be accepted as the absolute most humane and healthy choice. Go deeper and ask questions about the sourcing. “Marketing is sometimes genius,” says Diana.
To learn more about Smallbatch, visit smallbatchpets.com.
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