In Canine Caviar Google Hangout #12 learn about a cost evaluation of Canine Caviar’s alkaline based organic pet food and why Canine Caviar is as affordable, sometimes even more affordable, as other brands. Canine Caviar believes in a holistic approach to pet nutrition and is an alkaline based diet for dogs.
Doreen Wong: Hey everyone, we are here hanging out, Canine Caviar hangout #12, this week we’re talking about cost evaluation. A couple of questions that came up recently at SuperZoo were around the price of Canine Caviar as opposed to other brands that you may find at Wal-Mart or something like that. We have some great people on the hangout today and then we’ll talk about the cost evaluation issue.
Jeff Baker: Jeff Baker, Research Scientist, CEO, Canine Caviar Pet Foods
Bob Vella: I am the National Sales Director for Canine Caviar Pet Foods.
Lynn Stacy-Smith: I am a Freelance Writer and I have 2 Labs and I’m a Canine Caviar customer.
Dawn Barraco: Good morning, I was at SuperZoo so I appreciate you being able to answer these questions. It came up a lot and just to let everyone know, people really liked the fact that we took the trouble of doing that, so thank you, thank you.
Doreen Wong: So who wants to answer the question?
Bob Vella: I’ll go ahead and address it. When you look at the price of dog food, and dog food’s come a long way over the years, I mean I remember back in the 80s when dog food used to be under $20 a bag, and the old saying “you get what you pay for” still applies today. The important thing to remember when you look at the cost of dog food, when it comes to Canine Caviar, is that the most expensive bag that you’re going to buy is the first bag. One of our sales reps down in the south coined that phrase and when I started thinking about that and analyzing it, it’s so true. So let me break this down. Canine Caviar is the highest calorie content dog food on the market.
The important thing to remember is that dogs eat to caloric level, so if you have our food at let’s say average of 600 calories per Kcup and you have brand X at 300 to 340 calories per Kcup, your dog is going to eat double the amount of brand X as compared to canine Caviar. So putting that into perspective, so for a 50-pound dog our feeding recommendation is one cup per inactive 50-pound dog. Now believe it or not, I have 2 standard poodles, sound asleep so I would classify them as inactive, but for all intents and purposes both of them are typical dogs in their home. One of them weighs 65 pounds, one of them is a puppy, so let’s take the 65 pound, he’s 7 years old, he eats 1 ¼ cups a day, comparing that to another brand that has a lower calorie content he’s going to eat double that amount. So if you’re paying $45 for a bag of dog food, you’re going to go through 2 to 2.5 bags of that food compared to Canine caviar, so going back to the statement I made a minute ago to the first bag being the most expensive, the reason is that first of all you have to buy it, number 2 that bag is going to last you 2 to 2.5 times longer than the brand that you were feeding before, so if you break that down over say a 60 day period you’re going to buy 2 bags of the bag that you were buying, so if it’s around $45 that’s now $80 to $90 for those two bags, and you buy one bag of Canine Caviar, that one bag is going to run you $65 to $90 depending on which protein source that you decide on. So you’re going to feed half as much and it’s going to last twice as long.
Now comparing that to some of the grocery brands that are out there, those calorie contents are a lot lower than some of the premiums that you find at pet specialty stores so you’re going to feed in some cases three times the amount of a grocery store brand to our brand, so you’re going to go through 3 bags at $30 average, so you’re at $90 of a grocery store brand to one bag of Canine Caviar that’s going to run between $65 to $95 again depending on the protein source that you choose. Now stop and think about that, so your dog, if they’re eating a grocery store brand, they’re going to eat 3 times the amount, their body is going to have 3 times the amount of digestion, you’re going to have 3 times the amount of waste in eh back yard, because Canine Caviar is 91-93% digestible, so you’re going to be out in the back yard scooping poop a lot, compared to our brand in which they assimilate so much more and digest so much more, and use so much more of the nutrients. Now you are what you eat and if you look at ours we have a limited ingredient table, we have a protein source in all of our bags except one, which is very important, we use a dehydrated protein source, which is extremely important, and look at the labels on dog foods.
I’ve been preaching this for years, look at the first 5 ingredients at what is in your food. If you have glutens in there, if you have corn in there, and look for other versions of corn, because when you add them all up together the number one ingredient in that bag is going to be corn. When it comes to our food the number one ingredient in our food is the number one ingredient. There’s nothing else in there that’s going to take its place, it’s going to be the number one ingredient. For example if it’s chicken #1, it’s dehydrated chicken, that is going to be the number one thing that’s in that bag, if it’s venison or duck or herring, that is the number one ingredient. We don’t trick you, we don’t play games when it comes to our ingredients, and we list exactly how it is. We have a limited ingredient bag of food and when you break it down that’s exactly what it is, it’s limited ingredients, all wholesome ingredients, and all human grade quality ingredients that your dog is definitely going to utilize.
Doreen Wong: Something to add that Jeff mentioned in a previous hangout is the ash content in Canine Caviar is much lower than in grocery brands.
Jeff Baker: Or even regular pet food. We’re using more of the deboned types of meats, the low ash content. And an important thing to remember is that I would say that about 99% of dog in America are inactive. Just because your dog goes from the kitchen to the couch doesn’t mean that he’s an active dog. This is really important to remember. A wolf in the wild is considered to be an active athlete and they’re doing maybe 50 to 70 miles per day. Most of our dogs at home are not even doing that their entire lives. So when people say, “Oh, my dog is active” he might be really active to you but he’s not really active and just because you want to feed him more does not mean it’s healthy for him.
Doreen Wong: So for parents who are transitioning from a grocery store brand to Canine Caviar, at first they’re going to see the difference in the bowl and they’re going going to think that their pet is starving.
Bob Vella: That’s a good point to bring up because we live in a society where more is better and that’s not necessarily true when it comes to our pets because our pets again eat to caloric level, so since the calories are more dense in our food, they’re going to eat a lot less of it so you have to get it through your head that more is not better, feed the recommended amount when it comes to what we recommend on the bag. It’s all been scientifically researched as far as what amount to give them. Now when you do switch over to Canine Caviar, one of the beauties of our food is that you can just switch over 100%, you do not have to mix the other brand in with our brand. Finish up the brand that you have, switch over to our brand, and don’t mix any of the old brand at all. However we do recommend that you go 50% of the recommended amount the first day, this gives the stomach a chance to shrink a little bit. The next day and on, go ahead and feed the recommended amount for the activity level of your dog and the weight level of your dog.
Jeff Baker: Canine Caviar is like the Prius of dog food; a little bit goes a very long way. It’s much healthier for the environment and much healthier for your pets.
Bob Vella: Another important thing to remember is that our pets don’t drink enough water and Canine Caviar is designed to make them drink more water, which is important, so make sure you have plenty of fresh water available at all times.
Lynn Stacy-Smith: I have a question about that last fact. How does that work, how does it make them drink more water?
Jeff Baker: Because we have lower moisture, we only use 8% moisture in our bag of dog food whereas other pet foods are mostly 10 to 12%, so this is one of the reasons why you’re getting more calories per bag of food, why you’re’ getting more nutrition per bag of food. No need for us to put more water in the bag of food because you can buy it from your filtration system or bottled water so you can give it to them fresh.
Bob Vella: That’s a good point, there’s not a lot of extra weight in our bag, it’s pure good food.
Jeff Baker: I think Bob and some of the reps actually broke down the cost per day and it comes out to be 50 or 70 cents per day depending on which formula you feed.
Bob Vella: yes, we did break down the cost per feeding per day and in some instances it’s cheaper to feed Canine Caviar, for example our chicken formula it’s 66 cents a day for an average 50 pound dog. You buy a couple of cans of cat food, feed that a day, and that’s over $1.00. So it costs an average 50-pound dog on chicken formula 66 cents a day. A bag in my household lasts an average of 60 days, and that’s a 27-pound bag. That’s phenomenal.
Dawn Barraco: I really appreciate Bob bringing up the digestibility and how much nutrition the dog is provided from our food not only for nutrition value but also for caloric value. What I find is that I get a lot of comments and one of them is that their dog seems to beg less and it is apparent that the dog is very satisfied with what they’re being fed so that has to be into the cost factor.