F&D Heroes Issue 1

Food & Drink Hero:
Pawfect Foods
Prash Patwardhan believes we need to respect and reward our pet’s
unwavering loyalty and companionship with a far-reaching range of
meticulously made, nutritionally-savvy treats that best reflect the implicit
ties and deep-rooted trust that exists between pet & pet owner.
Like human food before, pet food is going
through a long overdue ‘redemption curve’
courtesy of the new swathe of dynamic,
health-conscious pet foods and treats.
New products are challenging the once
inescapable stranglehold of over-processed,
‘nutritionally-vacant’ fodder that for too long
has trundled down soulless, multi-national
conveyor belts.
As a blue chip marketer, I was always
looking for opportunities for a nimble-pawed
disruptor to cause ‘polite chaos’ in a lazy,
‘lost-in-time’ food category.
look back seven or eight years, you’d
undoubtedly notice that traditional dog food
innovation (like human food before) was
driven solely by the notions of convenience
and economies of scale, never ingredient
integrity, taste or nutritional worth.
Today, dog food has evolved into one of the
most dynamic categories within the FMCG
marketplace. It’s a food aisle where brands
embrace every imaginable food philosophy,
from raw, organic grass-fed and grain-free
to cold-pressed and functional.
And yet, at a time when dog food is aligning
with today’s healthier living agenda, dog
snacks remain lost in time, too often
rammed with masking salt and sugars,
synthetic nasties and all manner of lowgrade
ingredients.
As a forward-thinking pet parent it frustrated
me to see growing numbers of obese dogs
(25% in the UK) plodding around my local
neighbourhood. I have always been cynical
of the long-standing untruth that dogs are
single-track carnivores. No one’s suggesting
that meat isn’t the mainstay to any healthy
dog’s diet. However, even dog’s ancestors
foraged for fruit, herbs and grasses to
maintain their health.
Today it’s sadly all too clear that
overtly meat-centric diets are
responsible for an easily avoidable
swathe of pet health stress:
inflammation of key organs, including
the liver, kidneys and pancreas.
My award-winning business was born
to meet the needs of well-informed/
health-conscious pet parents who
were desperate for their dogs to
embrace the same healthier agendas
that they themselves enjoyed.
Pawfect is a vocal advocate of pet
‘snackification’ (the creation of snacks
with clear-cut functional benefits).
This explains why Pawfect only works
with best-in-class, human-grade
ingredients that ripple with full-bodied
flavours and nutritional worth.
My unflinching Pawfect vision is that
through all of our products, from
the ‘authentic’ Himalayan chhurpi
sticks made using the milk of happy,
antibiotic and hormone-free cow and
yak herds, through to our cheescuits
made with 60% cheese not 6% cheese
powder, Pawfect will never settle for
second best.
pawfectfoods.co.uk
@PawfectTreat
@pawfect.foods
35