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About Pet Food

Complete and balanced commercial pet food is one of those miraculous products of the twentieth century that altered the way people live their lives. It, along with expanded access to veterinary care, is attributed with resulting in longer, healthier lives for pet cats and dogs.With just a small can of food or scoop of kibble, pet owners are able to fulfill all the nutritional needs of their family cats or dogs. But just how did such a product become possible?

Commercial pet food products have their origin in the 1860s when the American James Spratt, an electrician from Ohio, was in London trying to sell lightning rods. Spratt saw dogs being fed leftover ship's biscuits and decided he could do better with a preparation of wheat meals, vegetables, beetroot, and meat. While the formulation was based more on guesswork than science, it was clearly a step forward, for Spratt's company thrived selling food to English country gentlemen for sporting dogs.

Since Spratt first began producing his revolutionary product, decades of research has been conducted in the area of canine and feline nutrition.It is this knowledge that resulted in the carefully formulated products we have today that are designed to meet all the complex nutritional needs of cats and dogs.

To provide a better understanding of commercial pet food, we have prepared an overview of the regulations that apply to these products, the ingredients used in the making of them, the processing techniques and an explanation of the labels that consumers see on finished products in the marketplace.