Exposing the sustainability of Mars Petcare, Nestlé Purina, and Hills pet foods
CORPORATISATION IS STOPPING INNOVATION AND PROGRESS
This previously written post exposes the fact that ALL the corporate companies such as Hills, Royal Canin, Nestlé Purina that are registered with UK Pet Foods are selling us the urban legend that it is sustainable to use animal byproducts in their pet food, or these would otherwise go to landfill!
The byproducts of a heavily subsidised animal agriculture industry that exploits every single animal that is slaughtered for the pet food market; still produces the cheapest ingredients for these corporates to use so that they can continue to increase their profits.
Robust recent studies by Nicholles et al May 2025 and Brociek et al September 2025 show us that more animals are being slaughtered and fish caught for their valuable organs and oils to be used in pet food, so the use of animal byproducts is absolutely NOT sustainable!!
It is well known that the ingredients in a pet food account for the highest carbon emissions and all eyes are on Hills, Mars Petcare and Nestlé Purina as they are the three largest pet food companies by far. See the promises they are making of reducing their emissions in this article, but we see no options to achieve this with the current use of only animal products in their pet foods.
Sustainable plant-based ingredients are NOT subsidised by any governments and are more expensive to add to a quality complete pet food, so offer less of a return on investment for these corporate companies that compete against one another for their share value on the stock market.
Royal Canin is owned by Mars Petcare
Please read 'Who is Mars Petcare?' which explains their beginnings and where they are now, with owning almost every specialist veterinary practice in the UK, Dreamies cat treats made of cheese, Sheba and Whiskas full of fish; and the Royal Canin range that has NO sustainable options.
A quick search on the nett worth of Mars Petcare below shows that $112 billion is approximately £83,380,864,000 based on the current exchange rate. SO much profit from the slaughter of all these innocent animals to feed our dogs and cats.
Like all the corporates and raw food companies, they hide behind the myth that 'it is sustainable to use the byproducts of the animal agriculture industry', a claim fully discounted through recent robust research shown here.
In February 2025 we had news that Mars Petcare was teaming up with MiAlgae in Scotland that makes Omega 3 DHA from algae instead of using fish as an addition to cat and dog foods.
This can only be applauded as fish should not be used AT ALL in dog or cat foods as our vulnerable oceans and sealife should NEVER be used to feed land mammal such as dogs and cats (6 top reasons NOT to feed fish to cats), and the amount of Royal Canin, Sheba and Whiskas with fish products in them is very concerning (all owned by Mars Petcare)!!
Fish is a primary allergen in cats as shown by this graph from dermatology company Nextmune:
Mars Petcare have set aside a BILLION dollar budget to market their NON-sustainable pet foods (yes you read that amount right - eyewatering isn't it?!), which should absolutely be put towards funding sustainable and innovative solutions rather than marketing their pet foods that result in the death of billions of animals, fish and chickens!
The small independents such as Just Be Kind are way ahead with the production of a pure Algae oil rich in Omega 3s for dogs and for cats!!
What about Nestlé Purina?
Interestingly we had the headline that Nestlé Purina has worked on a dog food containing faba bean protein, insect protein and millet....but this article seems to be stuck in 2020, with NO further development of a sustainable dog food at ALL by Nestlé Purina!!!
Just Be Kind uses faba bean protein as a highly palatable pure source of protein in Give A Dog A Bean and Jumping Jack trays wet food - way ahead of the corporates with sustainability and progress!
Faba bean protein is enormously beneficial to the environment as it fixes the nitrogen in the air and returns it to the soil where it acts as a 'natural fertiliser' and makes an ideal pure protein and highly sustainable ingredient for dog food as used in Give A Dog A Bean shown below.
Not only have Nestlé Purina not worked on this new sustainable option using faba bean protein; but they have launched a whole new range called Beyond that is even MORE full of animal byproducts and fish at a time when we are facing a planet emergency and should be cutting back on the use of animal products in pet food!
There is one positive with Nestlé Purina and sustainable options! They bought out Lily's Kitchen, and in 2022, Lily's Kitchen released 2 vegan options of dog food which we can only applaud and hope that far more is made!
If only these sustainable healthy options would line the shelves of our supermarkets and be recommended by vets (as Nestlé Purina have a share in veterinary corporate chain IVC Evidensia that owns thousands of veterinary practices).
Realistically, vets working for practices owned by the corporate chain IVC Evidensia, are far more likely to recommend highly processed Purina HA for dogs with allergies that contains hydrolysed soya (no mention of non-GMO so very likely genetically modified), fish oil and added sugars, as this is what vets are taught about and are the products that Purina market heavily as they offer more profit than the superior but more expensive pure plant-based ingredients.
What about Hills (Colgate-Palmolive)?
In February 2024 Hills looked at using hugely sustainable and innovative precision fermentation protein by joining forces with Bond Pet Food, but nothing seems to have come of this union.
Thankfully it is the small passionate independents who have already made this a reality with the production of Microbell truly novel protein dog food in February 2025 (see more below about Microbell)!
Hills have spoken of reducing emissions by 90% in 2040 in this article, but we see no options to achieve this with their current range.
Hills are the only corporate to bring out a dog food that contains insect-based protein (more expensive and not as popular as plant-based pet food options).
We do have to applaud them for this choice of trying to be more sustainable, but they add a type of fish called pollock which they say is a wild caught Alaskan fish! This is very concerning as an addition to the food, as we badly need to protect our oceans when there are perfect plant-based and algal alternatives!
Are there increased welfare concerns with the corporate companies?
Yes there absolutely are! Please read this article published by a vet in the Vet Record that highlights the abhorrent conditions in intensive pig farms and how the veterinary industry MUST condemn intensive pig farming and NOT encourage it as we have when we add it to dog or cat food!
Pork byproducts and pork fat is added to almost every meat-based pet food (and even certain medications such as Apoquel palatable tablets!)
I spoke at the London Vet Show in 2023 to educate as many vets there as I could about the huge health benefits of a plant-based diet in our dogs. Very sadly, the symbol for the London Vet Show in 2023 was a pig (as shown in the image above)
Did you know that there is no word for 'welfare' in Chinese and why is this significant?
What a sad fact that I was only made aware of recently, that the word 'welfare' does not exist in the chinese language. The image below is a 26 storey pig farm skyscraper. Yes you read that right and the image came off a video showing the inside of one of these skyscrapers in China with thousands upon thousands of pigs being reared for the meat industry on a truly industrial scale.
The stress these sentient animals must experience being born into such a facility must be overwhelming which obviously affects their immune system as they undergo castrations (to avoid a 'pungent' flavour of pork), teeth trimming and tail amputations as they are in such close proximity with each other and cannot interact normally.
The amount of antibiotics and anti parasitics that they must have pumped into them to keep the entire facility viable must be enormous as it would be too financially risky to have an outbreak of a disease.
It is a welfare issue beyond any imagineable in the UK, where dedicated teams are trying their hardest to expose our grossly misrespresented RSPCA welfare scheme that we have in place in the UK. This is on another scale of cruelty.
The worst bit is imagining how these pigs are killed once they reach their growth rate at 6 weeks. Surely the vast numbers that are produced in such a building would not allow for them to be transported and killed individually (as I so harrowingly had to witness as a young veterinary student visiting an abbattoir in the late 80's!)
Surely these millions of animals are gassed in one section of the skyscraper - maybe an entire room or section of the skyscraper dedicated to this?! Now I want you to imagine what is needed to kill a pig - a lot and a lot of carbon dioxide that must fill the room and enter their lungs, stinging their eyes until they are dead enough to not be able to struggle when moved to a different section of this skyscraper to be butchered?
These are sentient animals with the intelligence of our dogs that are used to feed the animals we love when we have a perfectly kind and healthy solution - plant-based dog food!
Why is the skyscraper pig factory in China relevant to this article?
Thank goodness for complete plant-based pet food!
When we read these statistics and hidden truths about the meat and fishing industry from scientific professionals such as Prof Andrew Knight et al May 2025; it highlights the value of feeding your dogs and cats foods that are ethically and sustainably sourced with pure natural plant-based ingredients to protect not only the health of our planet, but also offers an ethical solution to feeding our dogs and cats.
Please read a latest study from Sept 2025 from the University of Nottingham, showing how plant-based dog food can be nutritionally sound for dogs compared to renal veterinary dog food diets and meat-based diets - such a positive for all of you already feeding your dogs a plant-based diet to have science on your side!! (Note too that these studies were NOT sponsored by any pet food companies!!)
Prof Knight highlights bacterial fermentation as the future for pet food!
In his latest published study May 2025, Prof Andrew Knight highlights the need to focus on using alternative protein sources in dog and cat food, especially that derived from highly sustainable biomass bacterial fermentation.
We are thrilled that he mentions this as we absolutely agree. Not only is this new revolutionary biotic protein source the solution for our planetary health; but it is also a highly nutritious form of protein in our dogs that actively feeds their gut microbiome....and dogs love it which is also SO important - a win-win for our planet and our dogs in the UK!
Read more about groundbreaking biotic protein dog food Microbell here
I do remain an eternal optimist. It is individuals such as you who are going to drive the change by choosing plant-based for your dog and being the change we want others to see.
Only individuals can drive that change and that gives us all hope. (I did have to hold back the tears in the video clip below when speaking at the London Vet Show as a highly sensitive individual with deep concerns for our future)
“First, they ignore you. Then, they laugh at you. Then, they fight you. Then, you win”
– Mahatma Ghandi
“Sustainability is a motherlode of innovation.” – Harvard Business Review
"Delivering value with a new product and capturing value in return as with a profit without regard to environmental and sustainable impact is not innovation, it’s exploitation. Innovation is usually driven by necessity, with our backs up against the wall. It also often emerges from the bottom up, because those on the “frontlines” working directly with customers or clients have the best and most immediate insights into their needs and pain points."
