Is My Dog Food Sustainable?
“Sustainability” has become a buzzword for marketers and activists alike. Here’s how to sort through the noise and find food that’s good for your dog, the environment, and your wallet.
More Americans are looking to keep sustainability in mind when shopping for both themselves and their pets. As inflation and climate changes surge, there are new ways to spend your dollars more consciously when shopping for our four-legged friends.
This guide uses data from national surveys on American spending and data from reviews of major, nationally available dog food brands to help you make a sustainable choice for your pet.
What is sustainability?
First, let’s talk about what sustainable means and how that can apply to dog food. Sustainability has become a bit of a buzzword in our daily lives and is a topic plagued by greenwashing—when tricky marketing makes a product look more sustainable than it actually is.
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Curious how your current dog food measures up? Check our PNA’s Manufacturer Evaluation Report
Shopping sustainably means buying items with a minimal impact on the environment and supporting brands that are committed to reducing waste and sourcing ingredients that support the environment instead of robbing it of resources needed to keep making that ingredient.
This article also includes some money-saving tips and practical advice for making your dog more sustainable. It’s important to keep finances and practicality in mind when considering what is truly “sustainable” for most people.
Know what matters to you when choosing a food
When it comes to nutrition, please follow the advice of your veterinarian or other trusted pet nutrition source when choosing a food or managing dietary restrictions and food allergies.
If you’re new to digging into pet nutrition or looking to broaden your understanding of pet food regulations, the Pet Nutrition Alliance is a great place to start. The PNA provides a lot of resources on pet nutrition and pet food quality on its website.
Be sure to look for the nutritional adequacy statement listed on the food. This statement ensures the food contains adequate nutrition for your pet as set by the Association of American Feed Control Officials’ Model Bills and Regulations. This ensures your pet’s food meets the minimum requirements for health.
What is it made of?
Choosing a sustainable food means choosing a food made with sustainable ingredients. Look for brands sourcing ingredients from responsible farmers and meat producers. Pet food makes up 30 percent of all meat consumption in the United States, so it’s important to choose foods made of sustainably farmed animals.
Animal agriculture contributes to climate change and can impact the environment through pollution and poor land management, so it’s important to select foods that use meat raised in a sustainable way.
Here are a few lists of sustainable dog foods from popular pet blogs:
* 25 Sustainable Dog Food Brands (Eco Cart)
* 9 Sustainable Dog Food Brands Making Every Bowl Eco Friendly (Sustainable Jungle)
* Best Sustainable Dog Food 2024 (Dog Food Advisor)
Where did it come from?
Considering where you get your dog food and how it gets to your pet’s bowl is an important aspect of sustainability. With transportation relying on fossil fuels to get products across the nation (and sometimes the world) to your doorstep, that balance can add up quickly.
Freight transportation contributes approximately eight percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Add warehousing operations and this figure inflates to 11 percent, according to data from the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
Some manufacturers focus on offsetting their impact on the environment by using environmentally friendly energy. For example, pet foods such as Only Natural Pet use wind energy and carbon credits to completely neutralize its carbon footprint.
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Interested in digging into where your food comes from and the politics behind it? Check out all things Marion Nestle, including her blog Food Politics.
Look for foods produced close to home to minimize the impact of transporting the food to your front door. Investing in smart stewards of your local or nearby community can help you make an impact on keeping your local environment sustainable. A quick Google search can help you find local producers. Residents of Nashville can purchase food from Wet Nose Dog Food, which makes homemade human-grade dog food from real ingredients you can recognize.
For anyone interested in where our food comes from Marion Nestle’s Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine is a must read. It’s an investigation into the pet food recalls of 2007 and their implications for the health of dogs and cats, but also for the FDA, food safety policy in the United States and China, international food trade, and the pet food industry itself.
What does it come in?
What’s inside the bag is important but so is what the bag is made of. Landfills are finite spaces. All the trash we create on the earth is going to have to stay here. In the interest of saving space and keeping our environment and waterways clean, reducing packaging waste is essential.
Ordering dog food online is a popular choice for many pet owners with the popular pet supply site Chewy boasting 20 million active customers. That’s at least 20 million boxes used to ship dog supplies to your front door. Shopping for your pet food in-store at the same time as you buy your other home goods is one way to use less cardboard packaging.
Plastic is another major issue. Americans use around 100 billion single-use plastic bags every year, and single-use plastic bags continue to be one of the top 10 items found along beaches and waterways, according to data from Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup.
Take Action
Check out this comprehensive guide for recycling all types of plastic.
When considering the actual package containing your pup’s food, go for products that use biodegradable or recyclable materials. CarePac creates sustainable pet food packaging that’s safe and durable.
If you don’t see labeling on your food that lists it as biodegradable or sustainable, a simple glance at the type of plastic used will help you know if it’s recyclable. If the pet food bag is labeled as plastic #2 or plastic #4, it can be recycled with other plastic bags if it is clean and dry, according to RecycleMore.
Pet food that comes in a can is also recyclable. Just remove any labels and rinse and dry the can before tossing it in the recycle bin.
Is the brand trustworthy?
Major corporations are no saints when it comes to trustworthy business practices. The chances your dog food is produced by a major corporation are very high, unless you are making your dog’s food at home (we’ll address that later).
The Pet Sustainability Coalition works to make sure the pet industry is following sustainable practices. The organization lists its highest rated member pet food manufacturers on its website. It’s an easy way to check if your pet’s food is listed or what brands you should consider when shopping for more sustainable food.
Dog food should be safe and free of contamination and it should contain what the package says it contains. If you bought a can of black beans and opened it to find red beans, you would be confused and upset. Just like with our food, we want our pet’s food to contain what it says it contains.
Pet food recalls are common, just like human food recalls. You can check for pet food recalls through the US Food and Drug Administration and American Veterinary Medical Association.
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Your dog’s food probably comes from a factory farm. Meet some dog food entrepreneur who want to change that.
Make your own pet food
One way to avoid the research and time required to find the perfect, sustainable dog food is to make your own dog food. Feeding your dog home-prepared food may seem overwhelming, but there are a lot of resources online for how to make your pet food from raw ingredients you can buy at your grocery store.
Some pet owners have even saved money by smartly sourcing their pet food components. If you have the time to dedicate to making your own dog food, this is a great way to control exactly what goes into your pet’s food and eliminate food safety concerns.
Here are a few guides to making your own dog food:
* Vet-Approved Homemade Dog Food Recipes (The Spruce Pets)
* Homemade Raw Dog Food (Canine Bible)
* The Ultimate Homemade Dog & Puppy Food Recipe Book (The Dog Nutritionist)
Practical advice if changing your pet food isn’t an option
Inflation is impacting a whole lot of us, with 89 percent of Americans saying they changed their spending habits in response to inflation, according to data from Statista. The cost per unit of dog food has also gone up considerably just like the cost of the food we eat. So, the common folks bottom line is important. And I think it’s important to include in conversations about sustainability because, let’s face it, smart spending is a sustainable practice.
If switching pet food isn’t an option for you, here are some tips for making your dog more sustainable:
Check your calorie needs
A majority (61 percent) of domestic dogs are obese, according to the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention, so you may be overfeeding your dog. Making sure you’re feeding your dog the right number of calories is not only better for your dog, but it could also be easier on your wallet. One of the main principles of sustainability is consuming less. Feeding your dog less could be better for your dog, your wallet, and the planet.
Limit your pet-related errands
If you’re already planning to get out of the house to buy groceries, buy dog food on the same trip. Buying food for the humans and dogs in your household in the same trip will not only save you time, but it will lessen your impact on the environment by taking fewer trips in your car. If you have roommates or close friends you like to run errands with, consider taking a carpool grocery trip.
Ship smart
If you buy your pet food online, consider bundling it with your other deliveries. If buying from Amazon, it’s pretty simple to bundle your shipments so delivery drivers are making fewer trips for your house. Next time you’re buying something on Amazon, think about your pet food, too. Online pet shops also will bundle items, so consider buying your pet food and other necessities in one order to minimize the number of shipments to your home.
Buy in bulk
Anyone who has shopped at a store such as Sam’s Club or Costco knows the savings you can enjoy by buying in bulk. While buying in bulk will be more expensive on the front end, you’ll save in the long run by getting the product for a cheaper price per pound. Try to buy the largest available size of your pet’s food, which is often cheaper per unit. You can do a simple calculation with your smartphone calculator to determine the unit price of the food. You can also use this website to determine the unit price.
Sustainability is about ensuring you and your dog’s vibrant life can continue on. Making smart choices can help ensure that the relationship between dogs and humans can continue on for decades to come
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