Meatless Dog Food Startup Launches With $4 Million
- Source: The Wall Street Journal
- 16 de mar. de 2018
- 2 min de leitura
By Heather Mack
Vegan dog food. It’s a thing.
Berkeley, Calif.-based Wild Earth Inc. has opened presales of a meatless option for the quintessential carnivores.
Made of cultured koji, a fungus commonly used in Asian cuisine to ferment soybeans and other popular foods and beverages, Wild Earth’s pet food goes through a process that starts with a petri dish and ends with a high-protein kibble that looks just like any popular dog food.
The startup, which was founded late last year by former IndieBio co-founders Ryan Bethencourt and Ron Shigeta, is backed with $4 million from investors including Stray Dog Capital, Felicis Ventures, Macro Ventures and others.
Wild Earth Inc. uses a biotechnology practice known as cellular agriculture out of its Berkeley, Calif., lab to produce vegan dog kibble out of fungi. PHOTO: WILD EARTH PETS INC.
By removing animals from the equation, Mr. Bethencourt, Wild Earth’s chief executive, said the company hopes to reduce the ecological impact of pet food production. It also aims to eliminate the concern of contamination from drugs used to euthanize animals that ultimately end up in a dog’s bowl.
“Most of the major brands have meat scraps from the ‘4D animals’--dead, dying, diseased or disabled—so there could really be anything in there,” Mr. Bethencourt said. “We’ve taken an easily accessible vegan product that we can easily scale through biotechnology, not factory farming.”
Plus, Mr. Bethencourt said, even though humans aren’t the target audience, it is safe even for them to eat.
“It tastes like a dusty Cheez-It,” he said.
Despite the niche appeal of its product, Wild Earth is going after the entire pet-food market, which industry estimates put at around $30 billion annually.
The pet-food sector has seen significant recent activity. General Mills Inc. recently acquired natural dog-food startup Blue Buffalo for $8 billion, and Mars Inc. launched a $100 million pet-focused accelerator.
Wild Earth will start sales gradually, online and in specialty pet stores, and scale up production as demand grows. Along the way, Wild Earth also is working on a cat food made of cultured mouse meat.
Write to Heather Mack at Heather.Mack@wsj.com
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