![]() Like any good company, pet food producers know their customers well they know that humans love their animals and will do pretty much anything for them. Pet food companies also charge a lot because. The faltering reputation of rawhide chews has also buoyed demand for bully sticks, she said. Plus, manufacturers can generally only get a couple of sticks per penis, Martin said. Only bulls have pizzles, and they only have one. “They really enjoy getting to participate in this process,” Martin said.īully sticks, specifically, face additional challenges that impact their price - such as the one rooted in biology. They put out a few different formulations of a particular food in a large room and then unleash dozens of dogs (or a handful of cats) to see which foods they prefer. The goal, Nestle said, is to make a kibble that’s just gamey enough - that “tastes bad enough” - so that animals love it but it doesn’t smell or look so awful that people won’t buy it.Ĭompanies run sniff tests with pets to find the most palatable kibble, Martin said. Pet food producers also pour money into research. Pet companies carry out taste tests to figure out which formulation of kibble is most appetizing. Those costs trickled down to the pet food industry, said Dana Brooks, president and CEO of the Pet Food Institute, an industry trade group. Farms responded by euthanizing an enormous number of animals, which squeezed supply and boosted costs. A couple of years ago, outbreaks of Covid-19 forced meatpacking plants to close. The pandemic has also boosted meat prices overall. “They’re high-demand proteins and high-demand ingredients that the pet food industry has to compete for.” “They’re not scraps,” said Jennifer Martin, an associate professor of animal science at Colorado State University. That’s why some experts call “byproducts” a misnomer. While Americans might not readily eat meats like liver and pizzle, there’s a market for them elsewhere, such as in Europe and China. The ingredients can be pricey themselves, too - even the so-called byproducts of the meat industry. “The complexity is just amazing,” George Collings, a pet food consultant, told me, adding that juggling multiple supply chains and thousands of ingredients comes at a cost. Kibble also needs to last for weeks or months without rotting, which requires additional ingredients. (The adult equivalent might be something like Soylent.) Those homely brown pellets need to have the right combination of fat, protein, fiber, and nutrients to keep a pet healthy, even if it eats nothing else. In a strange way, kibble is like infant formula, according to Marion Nestle, a professor emerita of nutrition at New York University who’s written two books on pet food: “You have a product that is the entire nutrition for that animal.” More importantly, though, dog and cat owners have a trait that makes us especially vulnerable consumers: We are completely obsessed with our pets. For one, “byproducts” aren’t really byproducts as you might think of them. Benji JonesĬat or dog, mutt or purebred, your pet is probably pretty expensive, and there’s a reason why food and treats are such a big part of the cost. Jumanji holding a bully stick, a dog treat made with cattle pizzle (penis). Pet food was roughly 12 percent more expensive at the start of this year compared to early 2020, according to the research firm NielsenIQ. ![]() During the pandemic, a whopping 23 million American households - about one in five - adopted a dog or cat. These costs are hitting more people than ever before. Foods, treats, and chews can cost owners hundreds of dollars a month, even though they’re often made with “byproducts” of the meat and poultry industry - essentially, anything that’s not muscle tissue, like udders, spleens, bones, and, yes, pizzle. Each stick can cost more than $10, and my dog tears through them in a matter of minutes.īully sticks aren’t the only pricey pet products. What’s harder to stomach is the price tag. I can tolerate what they are, and even the pungent smell these things exude. My dog, Jumanji, loves beef pizzle - also known as bully sticks. ![]()
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