"2009 is a brand new year in pet food." (At this point) "I" (would like to) "think it is safe to say that every manufacturer, distributor, store, and pet owner is committed to providing the absolute best nutrition for our pets." (Though I am not so sure about the commercial mass producing pet food manufacturers.) "Two years ago we saw a lot of media hype, some of which may have confused people more than it helped them." (Last years things seemed to have calmed down a little.) "Now it’s time to get back to helping our customers decipher and understand the different options available to them.
The most common requests heard in the stores this past year were for Organic, Natural, or Safe foods. Surprisingly, however, the least common terms used at the retail level were Holistic and Healthy. Even more surprising was the fact that a large number of people can’t define the differences between Holistic, Natural, Organic, and Healthy. Ask your sales representatives and customers to define those four terms and you’ll never get the same answer twice. In fact, most people will define one or more of those terms using one or more of the other terms. The most common answer given in response to the question “What does Natural mean?” is “Organic and Healthy”. We’ve blurred these terms together to the point that they don’t have any significant meaning anymore. It has become extremely important for us to focus on this product segment. Therefore, I think it is important to be able to understand the terms most commonly used in selling Holistic, Healthy, Organic, and Natural pet foods.
Definitions from http://www.dictionary.com/ and http://www.organic.org/
Holistic - To treat something as a whole
Natural - Existing in or formed by nature, - To mimic what would occur in nature
Organic - Organic produce and other ingredients are grown without the use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, genetically modified organisms, or ionizing radiation. Animals that produce meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy products do not take antibiotics or growth hormones.
Healthy – conducive to promoting a good condition of the body
I find it interesting that only one of these terms, Organic, is precisely regulated in its usage. Therefore, each of us must decide how to apply this information to our product positioning. For example, holistic means “to treat something as a whole”. By this definition, a pet food is holistic if it deals with every health issue your pet faces. When using the word Natural in describing pet food, it is important to remember that the ingredients must come from nature and that the end product must mimic what the pet would eat in nature.
Organic describes the type of ingredients used in producing the pet food, however, there are 4 classifications of organic. Less than 70% organic may list organically grown ingredients on their panel. Foods containing 70% or more organic ingredients can use the term, “Made with Organic Ingredients” in their labeling. Foods containing 95% or more Organic ingredients may call themselves Organic. Foods using 100% Organic ingredients are the only foods that may use “100% Organic” in labeling. A fee is paid to the USDA in order to use the USDA Organic seal.
So what is healthy? The holistic market tends to avoid Corn, Wheat, and Soy. The overall perception is that these ingredients are not healthy. Let’s assume that an Organic pet food uses Organically grown wheat or soy as part of their ingredient listing. Would you consider that food to be healthy simply because it is Organic? What if we are trying to feed our pet a natural food. In nature, wild animals consume raw proteins. Can we consider a food to be natural if the proteins have been cooked?
It seems to me that the two least commonly used terms, Holistic and Healthy, seem to work hand in hand in their common goals. A Holistic diet looks to address every health issue your pet faces as a whole. Again, it is left to us to decide whether or not a food is holistic, regardless of its labeling. Skin, coat, hip, joint, and digestive issues are the most commonly discussed health issues in pet food. But what about kidney disease, liver disease, heart disease, circulatory issues, diabetes, cholesterol, eye sight, etc.? If a food does not address these issues, would you consider it to be Holistic?
The intention of this article was to help simplify the Holistic, Natural, Organic, Healthy debate. I have a feeling, however, that I’ve stirred up more questions than I’ve answered here. Each of us have our own opinions and we need to apply that to our marketing techniques. Hopefully, I’ve given you a strong foundation to base those opinions on. "
(Contributed by Jeff Baker, Founder & CEO of Canine Caviar Pet Foods)
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4 comments:
This is something I try to get across to our friends with pets. Just because it's "natural" doesn't mean it's good for you. Petroleum products are "natural" but they are not good for you.
A lot of people want to ignore what an animal eats in the wild and try to make the animal adapt... well it may... but at what cost?
For example... a cat's diet is a HUGE percentage meat in the wild. Most people however feed dry food with 20 some % protein. How does that even make sense? My vet ( a holistic vet) has said 90% of their diet should be wet food... much much higher protein content and also much needed water. Cats on their own do not DRINK enough water. They would normally get it partly in the food they eat (ie a juicy fresh mouse). She said this dry food/not drinking enough combo is THE main factor in kidney problems in cats... which we all no is extremely common these days.
So... bottom line... looking at labels is great, but you need to know the definition not just what it should be, but how the government defines it too.
First of all, welcome on my blog and thank you for the contribution.
Feeding the right food has become a complicated matter these days. This is the main reason why I not just started this blog but why we started our business. If you browse previous articles, pretty much every other one addresses the issues of health conditions the majority of our pets is suffering from. Today's diseases have reached pandemic dimensions. And much of it is to be blamed on the food. Yet, it is all so simple. Look at Mother Nature and you'll see quickly what has to be done. Dry and canned foods are convenient. Convenient for the owner that is. The most complicated part about them probably is figuring out which one is the best one, offers the most benefits and is likely to cause the least amount of problems. Then you buy the bag/can, open it and feed. Done. The animals will eat it. Sure, because they have no other choice. Have you ever tried to give your cat or dog raw food? They will be in heaven and you are going to be their hero for the rest of her life. So why do people stay away from it? I don't know. Because of the negative PR? Well, highly processed canned and dry food has plenty of negative PR too and only a very few pet owners seem to care. I really believe it is the convenience factor. Raw requires just a little more action. After all you have to freeze, thaw, cut, possibly mix wth supplements, be very clean and neat, that's all but convenient. It's so much easier to open a paper bag or a can.
Too some degree it's about cost also. I know raw is a better diet, but with 7 cats I can't afford it. I will say that I do buy very premium canned food... and a touch of dry for treats. I also mix in some supplements such as Cosequin, vit C, and possibly other stuff.
But... for the general person who maybe has 1 or 2 cats I don't think the difference would be that great to complain about cost. Really I don't think raw is all that difficult... I mean seriously... like 3 minutes MAX.
Cost and convenience is also why we have McDonalds, TV dinners and microwave dinners... and generally they are crap.
I’d say Yes as much as No to that. I don’t know your exact circumstances, but I can report of quite a number of customers having done some series investigating on this cost issue. They factored in everything, as a matter of fact, it is typically pet owners having multiple numbers of pets who seem to figure that for them the raw option is the more economical one. Because in that case you may be able to take advantage of lower bulk pricing. For instance we at our store offer so called dual case options which bring down the cost per lbs of packaging and shipping. Now, we are an on-line store, obviously, but not necessarily you may be better off if you can buy locally where you don’t have the shipping factor. Make sure you consider everything, including all supplements, the amount to feed, etc. The lower feeding rate is an important one. I see that all the time, by the way for any food. If you take a high quality dry food, yes, price wise at the first glance it seems to be way out of line compared to a low quality brand. But then, I have proven many times that it is cheaper to buy the better food because you feed a lot less. Then very often you will be surprised to find out it costs you less per feeding. The biggest problem I usually see is that pet owners believe that they are not feeding enough when giving high quality food because they are used to feeding buckets of useless waste. And I don’t blame them, when I started this years ago, initially I felt the same way. So maybe you want to go back onto the drawing board once more and give it a closer review. Keep in mind too the reduced vet expenses. Also consider freeze dried or dehydrated options, there you don’t have the shipping/packaging factor. With the freeze dried and dehydrated options many pet owners sometimes a under the wrong impression due to the weight of those versions. Understandabbly, coming from 30+ lbs food bags, they forget that with all the moisture removed a bag of 2 lbs for example can make 6 lbs of "real" food. Many of the raw food manufacturers also provide cost comparisons on their sites and I will do the same now at our store. It will be helpful for interested pet owners, thank you for finally enticing me over the edge to do this. Good idea.
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