In September 2024, fresh dog food producer Butternut Box (with a very 'plant friendly' name), stopped making their ONLY sustainable and hypoallergenic recipe made purely from plants with no animal protein in it at all - Plant Get Enough.
SCRUMBLES have also stopped producing their only sustainable plant-based wet dog food!
Scrumbles is an independent and highly successful dog food company producing meat-based 'gut-friendly' dog foods. The founders of Scrumbles appeared on Dragon's Den in 2018. Just like plant-based pet food company Omni whose co-founders also appeared on Dragon's Den in 2025; although, unlike Omni, the young Scrumbles' entrepreneur chose to turn down the offer of investment from Deborah Meaden and 'go it alone'!
They started a very successful company and achieved B Corps certification very early in 2019 as they stocked a plant-based dog treat. In January 2023, they produced a wet plant-based dog food that was the very first plant-based dog food to appear in Sainsbury and other supermarkets around the country!
Why is it important to choose your plant-based dog foods carefully?
The fact that both Butternut Box and Scrumbles have chosen to drop their ONLY sustainable plant-based dog food options that are shown to have scientific backing to be healthier for our dogs than meat-based dog foods, is a sign that both companies are after profit rather than your dog's long-term health (or our planet's long term health, even though both companies have achieved B-Corp certification possibly based on these plant-based options they used to have).
The ingredient list of meat-based dog foods are far cheaper to purchase as the byproducts of a heavily subsidised animal agriculture industry are cheap to buy compared to pure, non genetically modified wholefood ingredients as we have chosen for Give A Dog A Bean and Jumping Jack.
Every dog food has to ensure that their food is complete and every dog food (yes even fresh dog food Butternut Box), contains the addition of a premix of supplements filled with extra Calcium, Phosphorus, Vitamins and Minerals.
The premix of vegan dog food is different in that there has to be the addition of extra Taurine, Methionine and L-Carnitine (all expensive to add), as well as vegan Vit D3 sourced from Algae rather than from the usual source which is cholecalciferol from sheep's wool that is used in every other dog food (and human food products), except for vegan dog food. This sheep's wool Vit D3 is 20 x cheaper than the direct source from Algae or lichen (where reindeer source their Vit D3 from in the long harsh Arctic winters!)
This increased cost in production would also be the reason why NONE of the very large pet food corporates have sustainable plant-based options - Mars (who own Royal Canin), Hills (owned by Colgate Palmolive), and Nestle (who own Purina) ONLY sell meat and fish-based pet foods!!
If one of these giants that float on the stock exchange and have eye watering 1 billion dollar marketing budgets (yes you read that right - proof here!!); were to rather spend that 1 billion dollars on saving our planet and choosing the far healthier plant-based option to safeguard the longevity of our dogs, cats and planet; their shares would drop as their profits would decrease.
As they compete with each other and to satisfy their shareholders, they have too much financially at stake to enter the plant-based pet food space.
This is where the true dangers lie - in these boardroom high level meetings. If ONLY these companies were to be held accountable for the environment loss they have caused through the use of so much fish and meat in EVERY ONE of their products, each needing an overwhelming amount of land for the feed, water and habitat destruction from the millions of tons of waste that factory farms produce!!
We won't even mention the ethical cruelty issue of intensive factory farms as I find it too difficult to write about as a passionate empath.
There is a fraction of this environment loss with plant-based ingredients where vegan dog food could reduce climate change by a staggering 37% as shown by Prof Andrew Knight .....AND we know that from his studies and from those of Dr Sarah Dodd in Canada, that dogs not only thrive on a complete plant-based diet, but they could also live up to 18 months longer (!) as they are not being fed on any byproducts full of toxic accumulation as you have in the excretory organs such as kidneys and fat of chickens, fish and pigs that are used in meat-based dog foods!!
“Meat will starve us – because meat consumption drives significant climate change, reducing the world’s ability to grow food. 10 kg of feed is needed to grow 1 kg of meat. That’s how much food that we are wasting to produce meat in the current livestock system”
Plant-based ingredients are pure, and we even go one step further at Just Be Kind by using only non-GMO ingredients registered with the Vegan Society in our trays of Give A Dog A Bean and Jumping Jack 💚
I have such optimism in the power of individuals such as YOU reading to the end of this long Blog who understand exactly what needs to be done to ensure a healthier future for all of us - you give me such hope!!
