241. How the Pet Industry Really Works - from a 30 year insider

0:02 Hey there, it's Jess. If you're new here, I'm a certified professional canine nutritionist, raw nutrition certified for dogs and cats, a holistic pet health coach, the founder of Wild Wellness Pet, and the host of the Pet Parenting Reset podcast that you're listening to right now, where every pet deserves the absolute best and every pet parent is welcome. Learn from the best holistic and integrative experts in veterinary medicine and nutrition every Tuesday right here on this podcast. Or get individualized help with your pet through one-on-one consultations and take a deep dive into the root cause with the Wild Wellness Bioenergetics at Home testing kit. It's time to rethink how we raise our pets.

0:46 A reset to naturally healthy dogs and cats. If you've been feeling like there has to be something more, something better, a better way to raise healthier pets, welcome to the pet parenting reset. Welcome back pet parent. Today's episode is you guessed it, we're talking about pet food again. I have a guest today who has been a pet industry strategist, product developer, He's a podcast host. He has over 3 decades of hands on experience in pet nutrition, manufacturing, distribution, regulatory compliance, all of the things that we talk about all the time. But what's really interesting to me is that he also also represents brands in the UK and the European Union as well as the United States.

1:32 So he has a pretty big world view of what's going on with the pet industry at large. So Clayton Payne, thank you so much for being here with us on the Pet Parenting Reset. How are you doing? Fantastic. Thanks for having me on. Really appreciate it. Yeah. So I'm just really, really interested in kind of your view of pet food in general, but the pet industry at large. Because I, you know, was I, when I, we finally connected, some mutual friends of ours were like, no, you really need to talk to him. And I was like, OK, what's it doing?

2:17 Yeah. I mean, look, I think, I think like being around as long as I have. So like I've been doing this like professionally since I was 18, but also I, I grew up in a pet store. I've seen the industry evolve. I've worked on multiple continents with, with the, with different companies, but I've worked in manufacturing, I've worked in distribution, marketing, new product development. And look, my, my thing is, is that I've actually, you get a little bit cynical, I guess, because I always say to people like pet food is 90% marketing, 10% substance most of the time.

2:58 And I'm always pointing out claims to people I know and going, you know, and this sort of stuff. So, and look, it's one of those things that I feel like, and especially, especially for the people who really care, like, you know, we really want to call them pet parent 2.0 or like, you know, let's say the high educated crowd or whatever you want to call them. I feel like knowing the right questions is half the battle. Because I feel like there's there's a little bit of like a disconnect where people talk about certain things all the time and they they highlight certain parts of the industry which they see as problematic.

3:39 But then there's other things which completely dip under the radar and also marketing claims that are just what they are. They're just marketing sort of fluff and they might be true, but they're they're kind of irrelevant to the whole whole thing. So I just for me, I I just like, I do like talking about it. I mean, look, as you know, I have my own podcast, but I kind of let other people do the talking on my own podcast. So I kind of, I don't really get too out of my pram. So it that's why it's kind of interesting to come on and chat with you, to be honest, because I'm more like in the background moaning and like grumbling and going, well, you know, Yeah. So. Yeah, yeah. Well, those are the best episodes, right? When like I for me as a host, if I'm sitting back and listening most of the time, like those are the best podcasts, the ones where I'm having to fill in so much information. I'm like, this is great.

4:33 I love talking. I I love talking, but it's not the point. It's just not the point. So. OK, one of the things, well, you said so many things in there and I have so many questions, but one of the things that I do want to say to kind of jump start this is I saw this the other day on a content creator that I follow on TikTok. He said that he primarily, like, he grew up in the UK, That's where he lives. And he has come to the States a number of times as a tourist. And this was the first time he came to the States to like, live alongside somebody. And he was just like, I expect to be marketed to constantly when I'm here as a tourist, when I'm in New York City, when I'm in Las Vegas, when I'm doing the things. But he's like just living my everyday life. I am astonished at every breath you take. Somebody is marketing something to you in the United States. And I'm curious because you are all over the place, do you see it that way as well?

5:35 Is it just as bad where you are or the the markets you're you're in in the UK and the EU? Like how do you do you see the US being different in any way? So let me talk about this from an industry, pet industry perspective, OK? Just because I think it's probably more relevant, I think like yes, first of all, to your question, but I'll tell you why the US is a massive pay to play market like so if you are a small band and why, why innovation gets through in Europe more than it gets through in America is because in the UK you can get traction on your products without having a stack of money in the bank. And the US is just such an expensive market to operate in, like geographically, like logistically and just competitively, like the big companies have got so much money here.

6:36 And look, you know, everyone's addicted to Amazon, they're addicted to chewy.com, etcetera. And they're all pay to play environments and heavily. So if I'm launching a brand in the US on Amazon and they want decent traction, I say, look, we need the marketing budget for Amazon alone of around $10,000 a month to get proper traction. In the UK. You can do that with a 10th of that money. And so it takes things from a realm of like you need to have $120,000 in your account to 10,000. And look, $10,000 is in the realms of most sort of entrepreneurial young business people, 120,000, that's the price of a house, you know, and that, and that's like seed money that's just to get it going. That's without the logistics costs, you know, and like no guarantee of success.

7:30 And so the marketing here is just far stronger in the US is far stronger because you know, the nature of the of the environment is just so pay to play. So you have to be clever with your marketing. You have to be consistent and you have to put loads of it, loads of it in because again, the American market's so important. And I think when you then go to, let's say, smaller markets, you don't get pummelled in the same way. So if like I grew up in Ireland and Ireland, no one cares about Ireland. It's like, it's like 5 million people living on a rock at the edge of the Atlantic. You know, it's it's not like an exciting market for for companies, not like the USI mean, if you've got 5 million people, you know, you could have that in a small state, you know, and, and one that's interconnected with everything else.

8:21 So it, it's, it is a very market heavy environment, but again, it's because it has to be for businesses and it's, it's uncomfortable, it's an uncomfortable truth. And it it means that everybody's working overtime to try and get get some kind of traction. What? How does that translate to like the average pet parent just trying to raise their pet and buy them decent quality products, be a good pet? Like how does that translate do you think? So again, because it's a money driven environment, it's not a quality driven environment unfortunately and it's a margin driven environment because again, if you're spending a lot of money on marketing the the cost, the the price of the product at the beginning stage has to be lower. So my, like, me and my brother, we always used to argue growing up and it was like, let's say 22 brands of dog food and you're like, they're the same price, but this one's rubbish. Why is this one rubbish?

9:28 And yeah, we sell more of this. And it was like, well, OK, you know, if, if the cost of a bag of dog food is, let's say argument's sake, $100, you know, there's margins. The margins for everyone may, may be similar, but the cost of the product needs to suffer because the, you know, the marketing money needs to be there to promote it because that then becomes part of the cost of the product. So for pet parents, it means that you've got to work so much harder in the US market to find something that is good. That and there's other, yeah, we can go into transparency issues as we go along. But then that's when you get like marketing claims which are nonsense transparency issues in terms of ingredients, how things are put together, like what is good and what isn't good is really hard.

10:18 And look, people always say to me like, let's say from the UK and the EU, like when they look at American products and go, oh, this is one of the top selling products in the US and they're like, it's rubbish, it's rubbish. It sells for a lot of money. And you're like, yeah, but have you got $50,000 a month to put in advertising on ecommerce platforms to push your product to the to the fore? Probably not, because your product is actually higher in quality. And then the price point once you've put that on is going to be much, much higher than competition. Whereas you're trying to sell at the same price as an inferior product. But it's a pay to play environment. So pet parents, if they really are educated on what they've got to work, so much harder to find the right product.

11:01 So you mentioned a couple of times about marketing claims. Can you dive into that a little bit? What what you are referring to when you're like these marketing claims are rubbish. OK, so I know, like when we spoke on the phone before, yeah, you mentioned to me like human, human ingredients. Yeah, human food. Like maybe the human ingredients factory. Yeah, people love that here. Yeah. Do you know what it means? Nothing. It means nothing. It's like the most irrelevant thing going because again, if you look at human food and pet food #1 let's say you have, let's say, meat, for example, it's all slower than the same warehouse, right?

11:43 And then there's a number of different procedural things which can happen to turn something from human food to pet food exclusively. And that can be separation at the point of slaw or it can be separation like literally just from the cold store it's being kept in to, to where it gets shipped to. And a lot of it's to do with licensing. So again, if you've got like a, a licensed food factory, the FDA will regulate in the USA human food factory and A and A and a feed factory. The regulations for me are the same, same temperature stories, same hygiene requirements, same bacterial load requirements.

12:28 It's just what's that building regulated for? So for the actual consumer, it makes no difference. It's, it's a, it's just a gimmicky claim. Like it, it's human food ingredients. Because I think like when you say it was like, well, is it, you know, we should be feeding more off cuts and that sort of stuff to our dogs or stuff we wouldn't necessarily eat. And actually like that particular claim doesn't actually influence that at all. I think something can be human food, organic pasture, raised, regeneratively farmed, mechanically deboned meat and be utter rubbish for your pet like because like, and then it could be used like it could be like put like used with emulsifiers like carrageenan or who are gum or locust bean. So then turn it into a loaf.

13:28 And it's still all of those things. It's still human food ingredients, it's still organic, it's still pasteurized. So one is process and the other one is the genesis of it, or the the origin story, the paperwork and the yeah, the backups that it was, if that makes sense. And then one is the actual product. Because you're buying all of these things doesn't mean you're getting primuscle meat. It doesn't mean you're getting, you know, quality processing. Like you can literally be getting of meat that's been scraped off the bone, you know, or gizzards or connective tissues or trim or all of these things which are nutritionally completely inferior.

14:16 And again, on the packaging, all of those products I've just mentioned will can all be claimed as freshly prepared whatever. So if it's if it's beef, all of these things can be freshly prepared beef. In terms of pet food packaging, not true. In terms of human food packaging, then pet food packaging, 100% the only thing that has you have as a variance is mechanically rendered mate. And again, like there's a there's an understanding loss between people understand the difference between mechanically rendered, mechanically deboned like muscle, mate, trim, connective tissue and what all of those things meet number one, in terms of how good they are for your pet, what that actually means in terms of digestibility, in terms of oxidation and in terms of amino acids.

15:07 But then yeah, it's there's a but all of these things sound the same. Mechanically rendered meat is the is the classic meat and animal derivatives, which everybody knows is a bad thing, but mechanically deep boned, that's a different process. And that can that can qualify as meat, even though, so it the way I sort of explain it is like a mechanically rendered is the stuff like you've seen like the strawberry milkshake style chicken coming out of the out of the pipes, right? Everyone's saying that. So that's your mechanically rendered meat. So that's high pressure, like everything put in meat bone, like all the like what what was left of the car was put in crushed and sent through and it goes pink because it's high in bone content. So I think it's the calcium if the calcium is is always over .15% because even though they extract the bone, there's still a high level of bone in it.

16:02 That dash like your Frankfurt on me. Now that can be human grade. Yeah, that pink marsh can be human grade because again, we Frankfurt as that's human food. We don't think for a second, well, it's human food must be good, right? And then you have the mechanically deboned and that's more your cheese, but like your burger meat or your chicken Nuggets. And then you have your muscle knee. And then you also have things like trim, which again trim and it's fine to have some trim like it's fine to have some of this connective tissue, but connective tissue has no natural is very low in in tryptophan, very low in lysine, like very poor amino acids. It's all high, high fat.

16:49 And again, it all flies under the radar in terms of what we actually get when we when we get our, our dog's food. And again, look, there's a lot of raw food food companies out there claiming to be 100% beef or 100% this or 80801010 or 6025 ten or whatever they're going for. But they're using high levels of connective tissue, high levels of mechanically deep butter meat, like so very, very subpar. And look, you can tell it just by looking at it. You know, if you've ever picked up a raw dog food and it looks like a putty, you know, kind of it's kind of like a gunge.

17:31 That means there's no connect, there's no connective, there's no structurally integral meat in that, in that in that food. So you're talking about very low quality. But again, you can use words like organic, you know, organic grass fed, all these different human grade, blah blah blah. And none of those claims are wrong. They're just meaningless. So it OK there are you said earlier, there are so many questions that a pet parent is going to have to ask to be able to figure out like what they're actually feeding their pet or to qualify a new pet food, if they're going to look for a pet food or what are some of those questions that you wish pet parents were asking?

18:24 So first of all, I'd like to see industry do it not not not have to rely on pet parents to do it because I think that this is something that flies too much under the radar for my liking. But if you're going to ask, you should say things like what's the, what's the level of like in this? Let's say you're using a raw food, say what's, what's the collagen meat or hydroxyproline levels in this food? What is the fat content compared to the the protein? Because this will give you a real indication like the hydroxyproline amount. So hydroxyproline basically connective tissues about 13 1/2% of hydroxyproline and it will give you an idea of the quality of meat that's in that food.

19:15 So if you, if it's a very high hydroxy praline level, like I think normal meat is like 2 to 3%, but like connective tissue is around 13%. If you've got a high level on that, you will basically know that you're getting a raw food, which is low quality. But I would like to say to them, what cuts of meat to use because again, freshly prepared beef, that's not a cut. You wouldn't go into a supermarket and say, yeah, pick up some hamburger meat and say, ah, this is the finest beef they have in the in the supermarket. Ask them what what is actually in this?

19:56 Because again, look, everything is price dependent. If you're if you're paying low money for something, you can pretty much guarantee you're getting. Yeah, not not the best quality meat, but when people are paying high amounts of money per heated per pound for products, that's when they should be asking what is the actual trim to trim and deboned meat ratio to like muscle meat. Because again, these things matter because again, it's it's how it digests. I mean, you know, yourself, if you were to eat a pound of steak or a hamburger, which weighed a pound, it's going to react very differently in your system. It's going to take a lot longer to digest and will be a lot more satiating the steak than than the hamburger.

20:41 It's going to have a lot less fat. So again, asking these questions, you're saying beef, but what does beef actually mean? Because again, it's like, I don't think there's when when we look at humans who we ask these questions all the time. But I feel like we have a blind spot in the pet industry for this, of actually really questioning what these things really mean. Well, it, it's built in because the blind spot, because I, I've started going to AFCO meetings and it's, it's intentional. Like they don't want people to know what's in the food. Not 100% like again, because look, it's margin. Look, the price of mechanically rendered meat is half the price of mechanically boned and mechanically debone meat and trim is less than half the price of full muscle meat. So again, it's you know, and look, I'm not saying that there isn't use cases for it or that it's all evil. I'm not saying that at all because again, there is use cases for it.

21:46 And there's nothing wrong with a company saying we use, yeah, 40% muscle meat, 40%, let's say connective tissue based meat. Like that's fine. I've got no issue with that. It's just the transparency that bothers me, to be honest. And look, AFCO and they're just number crunchers. Like it's it's all number crunching. It's like, OK, average dog this size needs this. What's the right sort of amount we need to give them in terms of, you know, this, this and this? I mean, look, look at the calcium thing. I mean, calcium can be bone matrix or it can be chunk. Calcium carbonate is often used in dog food and that's chalk.

22:26 You wouldn't feed yourself chalk for your calcium. But again, it still takes the these theoretical numbers that are in there, you know? So when you say that you would prefer to see the industry actually be the one answering these questions, I mean I completely agree with you. Do you see a way that that can happen or that that will happen? I, I think it's by pet parents asking the right questions and pressuring things I think. And again, look, I think the side of the industry this really effects in, in reality is the premium end and the premium end people are the more inquisitive.

23:08 They are the ones who are looking to do the best possible job. They're, you know, best thing by their pets. So actually asking these questions is actually really important. And, but, and again, and like, I think just looking beyond the marketing claims, because again, you know, and also when you use a lot of these marketing claims, seeing it as a little bit of a red flag as well that you should like, if you're seeing, you know, human ingredients, like, no, that is nonsense. And it is a little bit of a red flag because you're really, they know what the difference is between human ingredients and pet food ingredients are because they're the ones filling it.

23:49 They're the ones doing the duty of care in the, in the, in the distribution. They're the ones who understand where it's coming from. They're the one who understand what that actually means. And if you're using that as a market and claim, there's something vaguely dishonest about that already, to be honest, in my opinion. So the yeah, the marketing claims trying to get past it, I think for the average pet parent it is difficult here in the States and that's kind of why I LED with marketing because that's that's always I think we're intentionally set up to not have the bandwidth to ask the questions and.

24:31 I think also we're intentionally drawn down quite a humanistic role as well where we they talk about. But I we did, there was market research done in the UK supermarkets as to what 3 words consumers saw as being the most important on dog food and it was natural, wholesome and tasty. All of which mean nothing. They literally mean nothing. They're meaningless words. And yet those were the trigger words. So if you had natural, tasty, wholesome chicken recipe, that would be far more of a, a drawer to people than, you know, biologically appropriate or, you know, you know, like, and it was funny actually, because just on the kibble market, there was a, there was a thing where it was like there was companies who were doing the whole, we used 60% meat, we used 65% meat, we used 55% meat.

25:32 And the buyer for a grocery was talking to me about and he said, he said, like, these companies don't understand, like no one wants this information. Like if I said to you, this chicken nugget was 65% meat, you'd, you'd freak out, wouldn't you? So when pet parents are seeing 65% meat, they're kind of expecting at least that. And it's sort of like one of those claims. They're like, what the hell? You know, it can actually be a negative to people. Whereas if you don't talk about it and you just say chicken recipe, natural, wholesome, tasty, that's far more like, yeah, it's far more convincing for the for the for the pet parent than actually like that kind of transparency. But that's why I say that the the messaging has to be for the premium that parent 2.0 top, top level high information customer. Because I think when you actually get into the lower, lower information, the actual information people are looking for is quite, you'd be quite distressed at how how easily marketed to people are.

26:40 Yeah, it it is. I'm not going to lie. Like I have to remind myself a lot. I will walk into a store. I actually around this time last year, I walked into a Walmart for the first time and I don't know how many years. I just, I'm just not a Walmart shopper and I passed by the pet aisles, which I was not happy about. Like I was not happy about what I saw there. I'm always very, very disturbed, no matter even in grocery stores because I this happened in grocery stores too in the USI don't know about in other countries, but the pet food is always right next to the cleaning supplies. I don't know what this is, but it's like aisles of cleaning supplies, aisles of pet food are always right together. And so I can't even I'm a very sensitive person. I all I smell are the cleaning supplies. When I'm in the pet tiles, that's all I'm smelling. And anyway, that's a side note that just I don't know what that strategy is here in.

27:43 The US, it's the same here actually. Well, I never really thought about it to be honest, but it's the same. Here and I'm like, to me, I'm looking at this like, yeah, you put the chemicals next to the chemicals. I get it right, but. Yeah. But but the the truth is as well is that the humanistic trend, it works on every level as well. So like, while we're talking about, you go into the supermarket and there's like a bacon rasher which is made of God knows what, like in like some packaging which is full of full of chemicals and God knows what. On the one hand, you have that, that humanisation. But then on the top end, like I say, you have these human food ingredients, you know, pasture aid, like, you know, like free range, these sorts of like claims that again, like they're not, they're not wrong, but they're not like the most important thing you should be using when deciding.

28:39 But they're the things that resonate the hardest. Because again, if you're if you're told all of those things just in singularity, you don't have to address the actual cuts of meat that are in there, the processing technique, the kill steps, you know, like, you know, any kind of emulsifiers they might have used to put on them. Like because you're already you're winning on the bit that actually, you know, if I say to you this, this yeah, this meat has been like finely ground so that it oxidizes quickly or like chopped. So like more likely. So there's more cell structure. So it there's better, you know, there's better release that digests better. And you know, there's a there's a lot more amino acids that will can come out, etcetera, etcetera. That's not exciting for a consumer, even even a highly like aware one.

29:33 But if I say to them it's organic, grass fed human food, blah, blah, blah, this sounds way more premium. And again, I think it's just trying to get people to rewrite the narrative and actually try and fit their human head on. Because again, the the worst human food wouldn't wash in the supermarket. You wouldn't walk around and go pick up some like ground beef and go, oh, like this is great. This is human food. Do you know what I mean? This, this wouldn't end. So you'd be looking at the cuts of meat, you'd be looking at the fat content. You'd be looking at lots of other things that don't involve these, like silly claims, to be honest. So again, it's just trying to get people's heads into, out of a, a market's dream and eat more into the into the real world.

30:19 Yeah. It actually would be nice to be able to go into a grocery store and have things labeled more appropriately like an apple be labeled an apple and A and an apple that has that isn't organic. That was maybe like they use pesticides on to be labeled like apple plus pesticides or something like that. Like that would be really really nice, but I don't. Think that? Do you know what I've always wanted? Like again, look, one of my like annoyance words is the word sustainable? Like that's a word that annoys the hell out of me because it's one of those really broad words that means nothing. Again, I'd like to see like a red light to green light system on sustainability because like is it?

31:05 Because again, what does sustainable mean? Does it mean? What does it? Mean. Are we saving the planet or are we just like putting, putting our our plastic bottles in like a different bin and hoping it goes to the right recycling center? I mean, do you know what I mean? There's there's a whole thing of sustainability and yet like people just jump on the sustainability about because again, it, it, it can as a second or third buying decision for people. It kind of it has like little things that go off and people go, oh, it's sustainable. That's also great because I like sustainability. I mean, we all like sustainability. I don't think anybody's out there going, I hate sustainability. I'd like to see the planet, you know, gradually decay. But at the same time, it's become a marketing claim. It's become an, a meaningless like platitude that nobody really understands anymore.

31:58 So it's like, do you know what I mean? I do, yeah, I do. It doesn't. It doesn't mean anything. It's very objective to the company putting out the product what sustainability means to them. Yeah, Yeah. It's a bit like, I think there was a, a pet food company that moves from plastic tubs. It was like a like a loaf type product and they went from plastic tubs into like Tetra packs. And they said that we've done this for sustainability reasons. These are much more sustainable. But again, you would have to have broke down each of the packs individually, removing each layer and putting them in different bins to get that sustainability difference.

32:45 And, and so it's like, is it more sustainable? I guess if like .1% of people do that, then yeah, it's more sustainable. But in reality, it's kind of negligible. But it was a big claim for them. So yeah, like, that's what I mean. I think like there's a we, we need to be way more skeptical of marketing claims and actually look more intensely at end product to be honest. So one of the things that I was interested in because I, I get to the point where, you know, people are just so discouraged when they, when they hear a podcast like this, right? They're so discouraged.

33:30 They're like, it's impossible. What am I supposed to do? You know, I'm raising 3 kids. I've got, you know, two dogs and a cat and I'm working full time and, you know, all the things I'm trying to manage a household like how am I supposed to do all of this? And I get that because life is hard and we have over the decades, we've just outsourced so much of our power to corporations and to governments and to all the things that we no longer have the bandwidth to manage it. And one of the things that people wind up doing is looking for either, you know, these small companies that are doing small batch foods or, or making it themselves and which, you know, if, if, if they're doing it, doing a good job and rotating and doing all like that. There's something to be said about that because you can, you can control it a little bit better. But one of the things that I have heard you say is that small batch isn't what we think it is either. And I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that. And I'm not saying the company, I'm talking about the idea like the.

34:42 The idea of small batch, right? And like, so again, I think there's like, again, there's an inherent belief that that people think if it's homemade, if it's small batch, it's going to be better, right? But again, just to give you like a human food example, like the the sprinter, Usain Bolt, like world champion, like sprinter in the days leading up to him, like running, he would always eat McDonald's chicken Nuggets. And he wasn't eating them because they were quality. He was eating them because he could understand the safety standards that are involved because, you know, the like McDonald's, OK, it's crap. You know, it doesn't taste great, but it's also very, very safe.

35:30 And I think the problem is, is that this isn't a blanket everybody's small batch because there are people who do great jobs out there. But just the idea of a small batch being inherently good is a fallacy. And there's a lot of things that can go wrong with small batch because again, you know, if you were to eat dinner at a different one of your neighbors every night, you know, just indiscriminately you, you can't tell me that's going to be better than eating in a chain restaurant every night. Because again, you're more likely to get an upset stomach to have something wrong with the food. Because again, just inherently people when they cook themselves, they're not using safety protocols.

36:11 They're not necessarily storing like the, the, the products which are going into this at the right temperatures and that sort of stuff. So again, it's, I give it like, so let me give an example. Something like bone broth is a great example of where small batch can go wrong. So if you are making bone broth, I don't know if you've ever heard people complaining about shouldn't give bone broth because of histamine. OK, if you're giving a small batch bone broth, like say if you're making it yourself rather than let's say buying from a companies in the UK, we have a company called Carly which they make, they make bone broth really high quality, but it's all made in a a human grade factory where it's everything is made aseptically so there's no bacteria. The histamine on the bone broth comes from poorly handled bones developing bacteria then being slow cooked at 90° / a period of time.

37:19 They, they, that bacteria growing into histamine. And then, yeah, basically you never have that kill step because it's slow cooked. You'll never actually like heating to high temperature because you don't want to denature the, the, the collagen and that sort of stuff which is in there. So then you end up with a high histamine low. So if you have a doll with sensitivities, then you can actually have a problem. And but I'm not saying this is going to be true for most small producers, but there are going to be small producers with these problems. So actually just thinking inherently dealing with a small producer must be better isn't actually true. You actually want them to be of a certain size. Now, like I'm not going go out and support the biggest of the big companies, but be careful what you're doing when you're talking about small badge because you know, it's like eating dinner at somebody in each of your next door neighbour's house for the next month. There's I'm not saying that like everyone's house is going to be bad for you or, or it's going to make your stomach upset, but I guarantee one of them will because not everyone is hygienic.

38:28 Not everyone fail their safety protocols and a lot of smaller companies fly under the radar. And especially when you're making stuff for yourself. Are you following proper kill steps? Are you following, you know, like if you can't use a kill step, are you doing things aseptically? Are you, you know, are you walking in there with like rubber gloves on and keeping things frozen to a sort of like to -19° until you can take it out and all this sort of stuff? Like chances are no. And so you are likely to end up in a situation where you could cause yourself problems by almost trying too hard to actually like be the best pet parent. There is a trade off. Like there's plenty of good companies out there which are doing things properly, which aren't small batch. And I'm not talking about the company's small batch because they're not a small company, but you know what I mean. But like who are, who aren't doing small batch. But again, if you are using somebody who is, let's say a small producer, just ask to see their facilities. Make sure you understand like what a facility should look like before you start buying from them because again, you're running a risk.

39:35 And there are there is problems for bacterial situations like look, chicken, chicken can be full of salmonella like you know, and again, that salmonella if it's not properly killed off. And if you're using your own oven or a small industrial oven, is that oven cooking consistently all the way through because again, like some of them, they'll cook strongly, strongly in the middle. The ones at the end so you can test you could have like. Ten of the chicken products from the middle, no problem. The one at the sides which didn't really get the full cooking process could be like could make your dog I'll. So again, just I'm not trying to put anyone off using small companies, but understanding the difference between making it yourself and actually using a reputable company who's actually doing things properly is is actually could actually make a difference to to your dogs health, long term longevity, that sort of stuff.

40:33 And look, it's like anything you can get lucky doing it that way and you can get unlucky using a big company. But I'm just saying, just like Vegas odds roll of the dice. That's why you should go to be honest. All right, Clayton, so a very hot topic that my listeners love to hear about and hate to hear about is HPP Processing. So what are your thoughts of HPP in the pet industry specifically? OK. So I think with HPP like, like you have to, I think it's, it goes down to the safety measures. And I think like a lot of people don't like the concept of safety when it comes to pet food because again, there is like the naturation of the, you know, it affects the protein, it affects the amino acids, and all of these things are true.

41:26 Like HPP does do all of these things. It is there is a a form of damage to the proteins, to the amino acids as a result of HPP, but it's also probably one of the best forms of actually having a kill step in me. And it is a cold step. And again, it's while it is, it does have an effect on on the protein on the food. The actual, I would rather like a piece, a piece of muscle mate, which has had HPP sterilisation is still vastly superior to de mechanically debone meat or, you know, collagen covered like sinew, like wrapped sinew, like trim, which hasn't been #1 because the quality of the proteins are going to be better.

42:24 The amino acids are going to be stronger. It's going to be higher in, you know, tryptophan, lysine, methionine, all these, all this good stuff which you need in, in, in your dog's diet. And you're not going to get the, the, the issues with potential pathogens because again, especially with things like chicken, salmonella is the one of the most common bacterial forms on chicken. And yeah, you could take, you can, you can take that risk. But again, like, why? Why would you, if you can use a, you know, when we, you know, we use HPP to compress things like juices and we see that as being a good thing. We don't say, Oh yeah, but it's destroying the integrity of the juices. OK, it's it's yeah, a little bit. But also we're doing it because we don't want to get ill. And again, you can like it's a it's a Vegas odds thing is that eventually if you keep not doing something, if you keep avoiding process, you, you might get away with it 10 * 50 * 100 times. But is it worth it that once in a while the way actually like it can cause a real issue, a real, you know, Goa issue or, you know, makes your dog quite I'll just because you worry about a little bit of like damage to your proteins and your amino acids.

43:47 When actually what you should be looking at first is you know what what is actually these, what is it? What is the actual type of meat? But also grinding meat to finally increases oxidation like that's far more damaging to the protein, to the cell structure of the meat than HPP ever is. So I can see it from both sides. But when people's it's become a buzzword where people are like HPP bad and then other people are there going, no, no, it's not too bad. It's not too bad. And it's like, OK, it's kind of I see it more as a necessary evil rather than a good versus bad thing. Because again, yeah, in an ideal world, if there was a process that didn't damage the proteins at all and everything was absolutely intact, use that.

44:39 My, my, to my knowledge, there's 10 times worse things that are already happening in the industry with food. Like, so like I say, you know, emulsifying being the worst, but going down to like the bone, like mechanical deboning, you know, high levels of like, of like, you know, like meat, which has no nutritional value, like a high grinding, which is, you know, high level like fine grinding, which causes oxidation. These are all worse than HPP in the scale of things. Not to say that HPP is like doesn't have an effect, because it it genuinely does.

45:20 But it's not. It's not if you're looking for problems, it's not. It should never be top of your list. So I, I'm sure you've seen a lot of trends come and go over your career. One of the things that we're seeing, and I'm not necessarily mad about it, but I'm just curious how you're viewing it. A lot of the, all of the big companies here in the US are, and I know in Australia too, I think, or I've heard of it in Australia, they are all in some way, shape or form entering the fresh pet food space, whether that is cooked or raw or sometimes both. How?

46:13 How do you see this going? What is? What is your viewpoint and opinion on? On so yeah, well, look, we've seen the same like the UK is seeing the same as Usus is more advanced than the UK. So I think I want to say 20% is now why if we're gently cooked or frozen raw something like that. The UK U.S. market, I think in the UK it's around 10 in Europe it's still under 5. So the US is, but we're all following EU s S trend. Personally, I like it like I'm, I am naturally holistic. I do, you know, I would say I'm not a vet, but if I was, I'd be integrative.

46:54 I believe in trying to use as many natural things as possible because that's going to cause less problems. And like, look, I've seen manufacturing technology up close. I've seen how they make loaf like wet food, you know, like, you know, turning it into marsh and squirting it into packets and that sort of stuff. And it's not, it's not great. So if you, there's a process where you're doing things better, that's great. But I think it's just important that like with any new industry, there's going to be good actors and bad actors. And for me, it's about making sure you find the good actors that are out there and look, there's plenty of them.

47:37 And look, that's what I say. Look, there's some of the questions. I, I said like, you know, asking what, what are the cuts of meat going in this? Where is it coming from? Is it, is it mechanically deboned? Like what percentage is mechanically deboned? Because again, like a lot of these companies, this is what they're using, you know, and the reality is, is the pet food prices are lower than human food prices. And so there is a lot more mechanically deboned and in the in the, in the pet food industry. Now we also have things like laying chickens and that sort of stuff which goes into pet food, which is good quality. We wouldn't eat it personally because, you know, our average like chicken is cold at about six weeks, whereas the laying hen is 18 weeks.

48:21 So if you were to try and find it really tough and really strong tasting. But again, look, just asking people what what is the meat that's actually being used? Because just saying chicken or just saying beef or just saying lamb, the kind of cop out terms and like, and, and if they say to you we're we use on them 20% mechanically debomo, we use 10% trim and you know, sinew and that sort of stuff. And we use 50% muscle meat. That's fine because there is a trade off. But again, it's just transparency, you know, and just making sure that the companies you are dealing with aren't firing lots of nonsense out.

49:04 Yeah, it's really important to be honest. So. But again, the problem is, is because the people buying gently cooked raw foods, they are the people who are more engaged, more aware, want to do the best. And I think it's really important for those people to really understand what doing the best actually is and not just being swept up on a bit of a marketing stream with these guys. Because look, I feed raw and I feed gently cooked. So I have 5 dogs, 2 are on gently cooked, free on raw. I know the provenance of those products. I know the companies that make it. I've been to their facilities.

49:44 So I understand. And look, I know that I'm in a weirdly privileged position. But if a company, if you can phone a company and they'll ask you and they'll tell you the answer, I think that's good enough because most most companies if they are dodgy about it, they just want to answer the question and those the companies you should buy off of. Yeah, I can see how in the next 5 to 10 years possibly, you know, these people that are maybe a brand loyalist or just kind of starting to dabble in fresh food because these larger brands are coming into the market. In the next 5 to 10 years, these same pet parents might start finding the smaller companies that we all know and love right now.

50:32 How do you think that's going to affect them moving forward? Like, they're going to, in my opinion, have to be even more transparent than they are now. But how do you from your point of view, how do you see their role? In the. World changing. Yeah, So I think it is more important for smaller brands to be more transparent because look, I think we've already seen noise from Royal Cannon going into the fresh, the gently cooked market. Farmer's Dog is an absolutely enormous brand in the US and like nobody likes to see their their sales eroded. And so, you know, you're Nestle Purinas, your General Mills, your Mars Pet foods, they're going to need a piece of that action.

51:20 And so they're going to come out with products that are going to look similar, maybe not be as good. Maybe they will, I don't know, like I'm, I'm assuming because they'd like to spend a lot more on marketing than they do on the product in the packet. But they also have better buying chains. They buy products for a much lower amount. So again, they're hard to compete with from that perspective. But these smaller companies to stay relevant, yeah, transparency is key. And actually, This is why I'm kind of passionate about talking to companies about this transparency thing, because if they want to safeguard their future transparency now, when you don't need to be transparent is going to be the thing that saves you down the line.

52:03 Like be 100% transparent about your process, about what you're using, about your kill steps, about everything you're doing, because that's going to save you when, when the big boys come, come after your market, which they will do, you know, like they'll always be there. And if they're not, they'll, they might buy one or two, you know, they might change the recipes, whatever. That's it's kind of a, but they will come after that market share because they won't sit back. I mean, 20% is already phenomenal and as it grows, the the pressure for those companies to eat back into that market is going to really affect smaller companies. So they need to safeguard themselves now. And so it's not, it's about looking after the pet parents, but also looking after themselves and their own long term future and being open and honest about what they do in the market.

52:53 Yeah, it's that put put your oxygen mask on 1st, right? Yeah, yeah. What? Don't don't. Yeah, don't wait until the nuclear balls of bombs are falling to build a bunker, you know, do you know what I mean? It's sort of like be aware of like every industry is the same, you know, small companies get things going like private equity money builds it up and the big guys come in and try and re dominate. But again, they don't need to test the market. The market gets validated by someone else, but you will get swamped and you will get taken out if you don't have a strong position in the market. So building that loyalty, setting the rules of the game now for the future are going to be important. Because again, if you can set the rules of the game and the transparency now, that's the way you're going to win. Because again, look, my belief is, is that at least 50% of the companies out there doing this are doing it the right way and doing it for the right reasons.

53:54 And the ones who aren't, you know, I don't care about them. So but they, they do need to, they do need to think about the future because again, they're in like a a bit of a golden age at the moment where they're all just competing with each other. But once the, and this is what I say, America's a lot worse than this for the different the UK. But once the the big money moves in, it will become very, very dodgy for them, you know? It becomes very dodgy for pet parents as well because it's just like we to me, I feel like in this tiny little niche corner of the pet industry where we're like, you know, demanding transparency and we want the best for our pets.

54:46 It we a lot of us feel like we have a good handle on understanding what we need to understand to make the best decisions for our pets. And we're in always continuing to learn so that we can continue to make the best decisions for our pets. But it is going to muddy the waters for sure the more these. Yeah. And look, I think this is, This is why putting that little bit of extra effort in matters like when you're looking at a supplement, three ingredients, if if like if there's more than five or six ingredients, then probably don't buy it. You don't need to be a genius with this stuff.

55:29 And like, look, the more transparency, the better. So if you know, if you're looking on a a bag of meat and it's telling you this is made with, you know, heart chicken, like, you know, heart, liver, whatever, you know, muscle meat, etcetera, that's fine. They're they're open, they're transparent. You don't need to be an expert. You just need to know that the company you're buying from is being open and honest with you and not hiding it behind, you know, legally protected ingredients, which you can do. Like look, when it when it comes to ingredients, I can put whatever I want on pet food. Like we reason I can put freshly prepared meat. I can put, if I'm saying beef, I can put freshly prepared beef, I can put beef, or I can put beef trim, or I could put beef. Beef, yeah, like beef from let's say shoulder from back from whatever.

56:19 I can be really specific if I want, but I can also be really unspecific. So trying to get people to trust those ones that are really specific is a good start because again, if the more people are hiding, the worse it is for the consumer. And the pet at the end of the day. Potentially. And the pet for sure, I mean. Yeah. Obviously, but obviously. What is there anything else that we haven't covered that you're like, I really wanted to talk about this today? I could like bleat on about all kinds of stuff, to be honest. I'm, I'm a bit like that, to be honest. I, I think I'm, you know, it's just, I think just being in the industry for a long time, I think, and I've never been a like a corporate guy, to be honest. I was always working with independence and smaller producers and like even now, even though I have worked for corporates as a consultant, I tend to prefer working for smaller companies because I like to sleep at night generally. But I think, yeah, I think it's really like, I say, I think in terms of like, yeah, looking, looking at products, I think, I think just looking for as much transparency as possible and like, I think look, trusting your local store, they'd like, we're still lucky enough that there are still independent stores and there are still pet professionals out there which you can talk to about stuff.

57:49 Some are better than others, some some, but, you know, some are more engaged than others. But I do think that, you know, engaging with a good like, you know, retailer is, is still the best way to do it rather than just relying on Amazon and yeah, or just buying online. Because I think we learn a lot from actually talking to to individual sellers who actually are genuinely passionate about about what they do. And I think that the modern era does make us lazy and not not actually do do what we should to be honest. So there is a lot of like small independence fellows out there who who are really passionate, who have read a lot, who do care about nutrition, who do care about giving people the right products for the right, right situation.

58:40 So I think it's just working with those guys as much as you can is important. Yeah, I think that's a great place to end because absolutely supporting local independent pet stores is is one of the best things we can do do as pet parents because they are really there for us just like you just said. And Speaking of sleeping at night, I will let you get to that because you stayed up late to to record this for us and I appreciate that. No, that's right. It's it's still only like it's not even 10:00 PM here. So that's fine. That's fine. Well, I certainly appreciate you for jumping on here and sharing some of your knowledge with us.

59:23 Clayton, can you tell everybody a little bit about your podcast? It may not, you know, be for the average pet parent. It may be, I don't know what, what is what do you feel like your audience is? Tell, tell us a. Little bit more about it. I don't know who my audience is if I'm on this. So I have. It's the biggest pet industry podcast, so it's called Pet Business Disruptors and I try and engage people who are doing different things differently or, and that can be everything from I've had pet crematoriums on talking about the cremation industry to, you know, people making alternative proteins to, you know, like to brands that develop, develop and evolving nutritionist vets, that sort of stuff.

1:00:06 So people who sort of stand on the fringes and and shout a different machine is what I try and do. Because I think like, look, I mean, and, and I don't know who listens, People listen. I don't know why you want to listen to me is beyond me. I mean, so sorry to anyone who did listen to to me waffling on, but yeah. So if you want to listen, it's on all the channels, whatever. Awesome. Well that will be in the show notes as well guys, if you just want to go click the link to it. So thank you so much again for being here with us, Clayton. Thank you for listening today. And please give your pets some extra love from me and from Clayton today and I will talk to you next.