The Dog Spot

Kosher Dog Food Article

Thumbnail example

This is a selection made from among articles on Kosher Dog Food. For a permanent link to this article, or to bookmark it for future reading, click here.

When Commercial Dog Food Became So Popular

from: Kyle Besser

After World War II, the success of commercial dog food was part of a sweeping society trend toward modern conveniences that would improve the overall standard of living and afford the consumers more leisure time. Women embraced anything that would free them from time in the kitchen and ease their household chores. Drive through restaurants, frozen dinners, and prepackaged dog food were just a few of the culinary conveniences.

Beginning in the 1950s, dog food manufacturers switched their promotional strategies to emphasize the convenience of canned dog food and packaged dog foods. "Feeding a dog is simple today," was one dog food company advertisement. Another dog food company advertisement was, "It is unnecessary to cook special foods, measure this and that - why bother when it takes less than a minute to prepare one of our meals for your dog?"

Another dog food company played on a similar theme, promising to do "away with all the fuss and bother in preparing food for your dog." The dog food company promoted the lightning speed with which their dog food could be served and cleaned up since it did not "stick to the feeding bowl and is easier than ever to mix."

The dog food market became increasingly lucrative through the 1960s. The dog food market caught the eye of American industrial giants looking to diversify. Quaker Oats, Ralston-Purina, and other breakfast food conglomerates began producing grain based kibbles and biscuits. Meat packers such as Armour and Swift marketed the first canned dog foods with a meat base. Even tobacco companies wanting to diversify their holdings, invested in dog food production.

Competition brought new, stylishly packaged dog food products and eye-popping promotional campaigns. These promotional campaigns torpedoed the smaller, independent dog food companies like Spratt's, as well as most regional "mom and pop" dog foods.

Many dog owners persisted in supplementing commercial dog food with table scraps, so dog food manufacturers refocused their marketing strategies. Advertisements put an increasingly derogatory twist on "table scraps," while promoting commercial dog foods as powerhouses of proteins, minerals and vitamins.

At a 1964 meeting of the Pet Food Institute (PFI), a Washington based lobbying association representing American companies, George Pugh, an executive of Swift and Company (makers of Pard dog food) described ongoing efforts to discourage the feeding of anything but commercial dog food. PFI staff also "assisted" Good Housekeeping, Redbook, and 14 other popular magazines in the preparation of feature articles about dog care. These articles advocated feeding commercial dog food to the exclusion of everything else. A script prepared and distributed by PFI warning of the dangers of table scraps got airtime on 91 radio stations throughout the country.