Pet food makers regularly taste their own product

by Ellen Slattery, Posted Mar 13th 2008 @ 4:00PM

For the folks at The Honest Kitchen, quality control means tasting your own product - even though it's marketed for the four-legged crowd.

The company's employees attend weekly meetings - often with their dogs poised by their sides - where both humans and animals carefully taste both individual dehydrated bits of the organic dog and cat food mixture, as well as the final product, to make sure the pets are getting nothing but the best.

The company got the OK from the FDA to use the term "Human grade pet food" on all of its labels. According to a rep from the company, the food is "probably a little bland by most human standards," but compared to what they imagine ordinary pet food to taste like, "really quite delicious!" (That answers the next obvious question: do the testers taste their competitors' food, too?)

Even the packaging is appealing and atypical for animal food - multicolored boxes with enticing names like "verve," "force," and "embark" that aren't a far reach from the packaged granola available for humans. They also make treats and supplements.

I'll admit, it sounds a bit odd at first, but after the recent horrific incidents of dogs becoming ill from tainted dog food, it's nice that a company takes this much care in producing a quality, safe product for their best buds.

Source

Filed Under: Business, Newspapers
Tags: america, animals, cats, China, dehydrated, dogs, pet food, PetFood, The Honest Kitchen, TheHonestKitchen

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

3-13-2008 @4:14PM Julie said... I think that shows great love and respect for our furry little friends. Those are people that truly care about their customers both two leggers and four leggers.
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3-16-2008 @7:10PM K9 Cuisine said... The Honest Kitchen makes some really good dog food. This taste test shows there commitment to producing human grade dog food. Many dog food companies talk about quality ingredients The Honest Kitchen actually does it.
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