Photo by Verena of Tobby looking at dog food.
Why sustainable dog food?
As I’m on my journey to reducing rubbish and living more consciously, dog food caught my attention as the big cans I was buying for the dogs constituted a big part of what I had to recycle.
I made some of them into flower pots as a DIY project, but, there’s only so many pots I need 🙃 so that wasn’t really a solution either. 🌱
Listening to Saving Us by Katharine Hayhoe, I became curious about the idea of feeding dogs food based on insects rather than meat and started to investigate and research a little.
When I started this research, the dogs got kibble from Bosch, a German dog food company with good reviews and overall feel, but they didn’t like to eat it very much, so I always had to add a bit of canned dog food to it for them to be interested.
I was surprised to find so many interesting companies offering great sustainable dog food and individual solutions.
I contacted some of the companies I found to see if they would send me some of their products to test, and Green Petfood, Fred & Felia and Edgard & Cooper did.
As I have never done anything like that before, I’m very grateful for their trust. 💚
This is what we (the dogs and me) found out.
This is who tested the sustainable dog food for me:
Meet my two lovely dogs, Izabella and Tobby.
Izabella is from Ukraine and will turn 12 this year. I brought him back to Germany from Ukraine when he was a puppy.
Tobby arrived in Berlin on a cold winter night 5 years ago from Greece when she was two years old, together with a few of her children and some other rescued dogs. I had agreed to foster her until she found her forever home.
But she was family right away.
Disclaimer: I’ve not been paid by any of the companies, and contacted them myself because I like their work and offers.
The Sustainable Dog Food Companies we tested:
Here is how the companies introduce themselves:
Green Petfood
“Here at Green Petfood, we have conquered our own Mission Impossible. We offer products with real added value that are humane and environmentally friendly.
Forging new paths and breaking up old structures means critically questioning the status quo, and offering brave and targeted solutions.
As we have done this, we have always remained mindful of our mission: to develop sustainable products for dogs and cats, but also for our planet.“
Fred & Felia
“We make dog food and cat food as if we cooked it for ourselves.
We only use food-grade ingredients. So, no leftovers, no meat waste, no polluted innards, no colourings, no sugar – in short: no compromises. We process, cook and bottle ourselves.
Our area should be clean – and that means the whole planet. To this end, we constantly check and optimize our manufacturing processes. We are the only manufacturer to use sustainable packaging with resealable Tetra-Paks. The material can be recycled and 100% reused.”
Edgard & Cooper
“There’s more to our dog food than meets the eye. We pack our dog food with more goodness than you can shake a stick at.
Our simple, wholesome, recipes are developed by university experts to provide maximum nutrition from natural ingredients. It’s like your pet has their own personal trainer.
We’re a nature-loving lot and we want to become the world’s most sustainable pet food brand. We’re proud of our easy-to-recycle packaging that’s less burdensome for the planet. We know we’re not perfect (yet) but it’s a paw in the right direction.”
I’ve picked these three companies because they combine the best intentions to offer high-quality food, with thinking about sustainable packaging, thus considering the well-being of humans animals and our planet – in short: sustainable dog food producers.
Another criteria I looked out for, which was, unfortunately, a bit more difficult in this case, is female-led or women-run companies.
Fred & Felia has a male-female-dog led team and presents a female veterinarian prominently on their website, which is great!
Green Petfood presents a team of 9 people on their website, of which 7 are female, which is also fantastic!
Only Edgard & Cooper is run by three men (and two dogs), but I’m sure they have a good number of women in their team of 200 people as well (they are just not presenting them on their website yet).
(I had hoped the dogs would enjoy the photo sessions more, but they didn’t quite think it was as much fun as I did to take pictures with dog food 🐶.)
Green Petfood
Green Petfood were the first ones to respond to my request and Andy, who I’ve been communicating with, definitely gets extra points for the nicest communication!
They’ve sent us three different types of kibble, a nice ribbon and a card.
You can order this sample set on their website for € 10,90.
Fred & Felia
Fred & Felia were the second ones to respond and sent us two of their sample sets (classic and sensitive).
This is wet food, as I think they only started to offer kibble this past week.
You can order the classic set for € 13,90 and the sensitive set for € 20,90 from their website.
Edgard & Cooper
Edgard & Cooper were the last ones to respond and sent us one bag of kibble, three different kinds of wet food, and two different treats.
I couldn’t find this as a set on their website, but the value would be around € 24 and you can buy all of these products separately on their website.
The dogs and I loved all the food!
Fred & Felia
I have to say that the wet food Fred & Felia makes looks so delicious, with carrots and potatoes, not too pressed in its consistency, that I was tempted to try it myself. I didn’t – but if I had a small dog, I think this is what I would feed them.
For the amount of dog food that my two dogs need, it is still too much rubbish for me to personally feel well. The tetra-packs they are using might be fully reusable and recyclable, but it still takes a lot of energy to do that.
Green Petfood
What I liked best about Green Petfood is that they are the only ones offering Insect-Food.
What are the benefits of insect-based proteins in dog food?
“The production process produces fewer greenhouse gases, uses less water, and breeding insects leads to less contamination of the soil.” (from their website). Katharine Hayhoe said something similar. And the dogs really liked it!
While the three sample packages they sent me were in plastic bags, I ordered a bigger bag of the insect kibble after and it came in a paper bag, which really reduces the amount of rubbish in our household, exactly what I had been looking for.
Edgard & Cooper
Edgard & Cooper is the company that reached me most on an emotional level, though. I love their design, it makes me really happy to look at and I had the samples on my kitchen counter for a really long time, simply because I liked looking at them so much. 🙂
I also like that they offer so many different tastes and fresh ingredients, it has a really overall fun feel to it.
I’m neither a dog nutritionist nor am I a vet, so I’m not going to be judging the ingredients or production methods here.
I do love how transparent all three companies are about this though and you can read all about their ingredients and production methods and choices on their respective websites.
I’m a self-actualization coach and I love helping people become their best selves, and start living out all of their potential – because I believe that it is only when we are fully conscious, happy, fulfilled and aware that we can also make the best choices for ourselves and our planet.
And this is something these three companies and I share: the love for our planet and the effort to really work towards creating a better and more sustainable future for all of us.
All three companies do their best to produce and package their dog food sustainably and I applaud that.
Fred & Felia say that their 390g Tetra Pak produced 81% less CO2 than a 400g aluminium can in its lifetime.
Edgard & Cooper say aluminium cans are the most sustainable way for them to go because the food stays good for a minimum of two years and that 75% of all the aluminium used for cans since 1888 is still in use today, thereby reducing the use of new materials for packaging.
Both Edgard & Cooper and Green Petfood use paper bags for their kibble.
Green Petfood says they are 125% climate Positive and Edgard & Cooper have a zero paw print plan that they want to reach by 2025.
Picture from the Edgard & Cooper Impact Report 2021.
From studying human nutrition for some years now, I know that we’re all different and have different needs. What is good for some might not be good for others.
Nutritional effects of food only show after a while, so testing these foods for some days doesn’t qualify me to judge this, though I feel like the dogs didn’t digest the pork package of Fred & Felia so well, everything else at least didn’t cause any noticeable issues.
But again, all dogs are different, and I guess we all have to try and see what feels best and what makes our dogs happy and keeps them healthy, the same way we would for ourselves.
But to try for yourself, I will definitely recommend all three of these lovely sustainable dog food companies!
I’ll continue to be feeding my dogs the InsectDog Adult from Green Petfood as a basis and mix it up with occasional treats from Fred & Felia and Edgard & Cooper, to make life more fun and exciting for me and the dogs .
And I will update this post in about a year to let you know how it’s been going!
Do you feed your dogs sustainable dog food yet?
How about you? Have you tried any of these sustainable dog food brands?
What do you feed your dogs and why?
I’d be curious to hear about your experiences!
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