Vegan Dog Food Company Raises $23 Million In Funding
Pets consume more than 25% of the US meat supply. Now, investors are betting big on Wild Earth’s healthy and sustainable plant-based pet food.
Credit: Wild Earth
A company which sells plant-based pet food has raised $23 million in its latest round of funding, amid rising consumer interest in healthier and more sustainable pet foods.
Wild Earth makes sustainable vegan dog food and treats made from superfoods like chickpeas, sweet potatoes, spinach, and blueberries. Its products are said to be healthier for dogs, and are considerably more sustainable and less resource-intensive than producing animal-based dog food.
“Of the meat we consume in the U.S., 25% to 30% of it goes to our pets,” Wild Earth’s founder Ryan Bethencourt told CNBC.
“There’s this outdated perspective that the intestines and whatever else goes to our pets; that doesn’t happen anymore. Entire factory farms are running to feed our pets, and it just makes no sense to make little brown balls of protein if we can make it with plants”.
The company initially garnered public interest after Bethencourt pitched Wild Earth’s products on Shark Tank - not only did the Sharks taste his dog treats, but Mark Cuban invested in them too.
Now, Cuban has returned to invest again in Wild Earth’s latest round of funding, which raised a further $23 million. Other investors include VegInvest, Big Idea Ventures, and Bitburger Ventures, with the funding allowing Wild Earth to develop pet food made with lab-grown meat and fish.
And it seems now is the perfect time to promote more sustainable ways to feed our pets: the American Pet Products Association reports that a staggering seventy percent of Americans are said to own a pet.
Wild Earth is noticing the consumer trend of plant-based dog food, with the company’s sales seeing 700% growth from 2020 to 2021, and the company now has more than 40,000 customers in the U.S.
Increased awareness of the health benefits for dogs on a vegan diet are helping drive this trend: the likes of musician Katy Perry and F1 champion Lewis Hamilton are among those who have publicly spoken about feeding their canine companions a plant-based diet.
“3 months ago, I decided to transition [Roscoe] to a vegan diet. It has changed his life”, Hamilton wrote on Instagram. “He now doesn’t have any breathing issues, his throat is no longer restricted, and he doesn’t overheat like he did before and he loves to run. He also has no allergy issues. He’s like a puppy again!”.
Vegan dog food: Is it healthy?
“A growing body of evidence appears to indicate that dogs and cats can survive, and indeed thrive, on nutritionally-sound vegetarian and vegan diets,” according to the authors of a review in the journal Animals of four studies that examined the nutritional adequacy of vegetarian diets for dogs.
The key is to plan your dog's diet well, to make sure that their nutritional needs are always being met. A good way to do this is to consult your vet. With the right care, many - but not all - dogs can thrive on plant-based food.
Interestingly, the famous border-collie “Bramble” - who lived for 25 years and held the Guinness World Record for “the world’s oldest bitch” - lived on a vegan diet full of brown rice, lentils, vegetable protein and yeast extract.
Plant-based dog food is evidently here to stay - and that’s good news for animals and the planet. Find out more, by listening to Species Unite’s episode Ryan Bethencourt: This is the Future of Dog Food.
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Species Unite
A collection of stories of those who fight the good fight on behalf of animals.
The footage was reportedly recorded at Marshall BioResources in North Rose, New York, where up to 22,000 dogs - mostly beagles - are being bred for animal experimentation.