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San Diego, Calif., Business Markets Upscale Pet Food to Animal Lovers

Posted on: Tuesday, 28 March 2006, 00:00 CST

By Frank Green, The San Diego Union-Tribune

Mar. 25--Joy Smith's three Cavalier King Charles Spaniels chow down every day like royalty, indeed like their 17th century bon vivant namesake.

Dropped into their bowls is a gourmet, dinner-table quality feed boasting such unlikely dog food fare as chicken, sweet potatoes, apples, yogurt and garlic.

Smith is an adherent of the raw, dehydrated dog food made by The Honest Kitchen, a Pacific Beach company that goes beyond kibble and canned to feed pets a variety of healthier fare typically found on their masters' plates.

"The pet dog is no longer a beast chained to the stake in the yard," said Lucy Postins, who co-founded the firm with her husband, Charlie, in the kitchen of their Pacific Beach home in 2002. "Pets have become part of the family."

The Honest Kitchen is targeting well-educated, affluent pet owners -- the same group fueling growth in the $35.9'billion pet supplies industry. In addition to its three dog-food mixes, the company recently introduced a blend for cats.

Postins is the company's director of marketing, while her husband is creative director. Three other executives handle sales, operations and logistics, and accounts and business development.

An increasing number of Americans is are sparing no expense on their animals, buying everything from pricey chow to faux mink coats or feathered French day beds, according to the American Pet Product Manufacturers Association.

"More and more pet owners are turning to these types of products," said association Chief Operating Officer Bob Vetere.

So far, demand for The Honest Kitchen's three dog food varieties and several pet treats and supplements has been rising like a Labrador begging for table scraps. Sales at the company reached $1.47 million last year, up 90'percent from 2004.

About 600 or so pet boutiques, such as Pet People and Pet Food Express, carry The Honest Kitchen's products, and the line is being test-marketed at a Whole Foods supermarket on Via La Jolla Drive in La Jolla. Twenty percent of sales come from online orders, Postins said.

But whether The Honest Kitchen's brand is necessarily superior to IAMS or Kibbles 'n Bits more conventional dog food is a matter of debate.

Kirk Feinberg, a veterinarian at the Governor Animal Clinic in San Diego, said that while he likes The Honest Kitchen's products, he couldn't say if a specific diet is best for any pet.

"There are so many variables to (a dog's) genetic makeup," said Feinberg, noting that many canines who eat mainstream dog food from pet superstores are healthy. "They have bright eyes, and their owners are happy with them."

But Patricia Unger, principal veterinarian at Kensington Veterinary Hospital in San Diego, noted that there is plenty of evidence that consumption of healthy food is beneficial to humans.

"The same goes for animals," Unger said. "A lot of animals do need what I'd call a healthy diet."

Dog owners who switch from, say, Alpo to The Honest Kitchen's brand should be ready to expand the pet budget.

For instance, a 10-pound bucket of the company's Force, which makes 43 pounds of food once hydrated, is priced at $71. That's about $1.65 a pound.

At Petco, a 44.1-pound bag of Pedigree Complete Nutrition for Dogs, is $18.99, or about 43 cents a pound.

Postins stressed that ingredients such as the organic flaxseed, coconut and spinach found in The Honest Kitchen's mixes cost substantially more than the meat by-products and grain fillers included in many familiar dog food brands.

"Zucchini's more than $4 a pound," said Postins, adding that her company would never consider putting grains in its dog foods because they can cause itchy skin and other side effects in some canines.

The company's Force blend, which is formulated for all adult dogs, includes a mix of chicken, flaxseed, potatoes, celery, cabbage and other ingredients.

Embark -- a blend including turkey, spinach, carrots, coconut and apples ... is designed for "all life stages." A 10-pound bucket costs $74.

Beef, rolled rye, rolled barley, alfalfa and eggs are among the ingredients in the firm's Verve mix, designed for adult dog maintenance and senior animals. The blend is $50 for 10'pounds.

The Honest Kitchen recently introduced a cat food known as Prowl, with chicken, eggs, potatoes, cranberries and other foods. A 4-pound bucket of Prowl, designed for adult maintenance, costs $51.

It's also costlier to have the pet food manufactured in a human-food processing plant certified by the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S.

Department of Agriculture, Postins said. The foods processed at the factory are inspected and guaranteed fit for human consumption, thus giving pet owners "peace of mind" that The Honest Kitchen's product is pure, she said.

Postins, a canine nutritionist with a degree in equine business studies from a college in the United Kingdom, got the idea for The Honest Kitchen four years ago while mixing dog food in her kitchen for Mosi Carew, the family's Rhodesian Ridgeback. She felt the food she prepared for her dogs was healthier than commercial dog food and decided to go one step further.

After numerous rounds of taste testing with Mosi Carew, The Honest Kitchen's first commercial batch of 1,000 pounds of dog food was ready to package and sell on the Internet in October 2002.

Postins said she knew the business would click when she went to test the ordering process at the company's new Web site, www.thehonestkitchen.com.

"There was already an order from a customer in Maryland," she said.

The Honest Kitchen doesn't plan to sell its products in pet superstores such as Petsmart or Petco, where they might get lost among the dozens of brands on the shelves. Moreover, the beneficial aspects of the foods and the hydration process necessary for serving "require some explaining" more easily accomplished in boutique shops, Postins said.

Besides their healthy properties, The Honest Kitchen's products offer dietary variety vital to a dog's well-being, she said.

The food has a balanced calcium-phosphorous ratio that makes it easier than with typical commercial brands to add meats and other ingredients, even cottage cheese, to the mix, she said.

"A dog who has to eat Kibbles every day is like (a human) eating only Cheerios every day," she said.

Smith, a Rancho Penasquitos resident who changed to The Honest Kitchen brand two years ago, said her pets seem happier and more energetic.

"I'm making fewer visits to the vet because of the healthy food," she said.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The San Diego Union-Tribune

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Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune

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