Like many holistic petfood brands, the story of Canine & Feline Caviar Pet Foods starts with a family pet with health issues and a pet parent fed up with the traditional veterinary diets available. Moguls the Great Dane was constantly plagued with allergies and skin problems, but lived to be 17 years old thanks to Canine Caviar, states the company website. Before Canine Caviar, Moguls would visit the veterinarian’s office about once a month for cortisone shots. Jeff Baker, CEO and founder of Canine & Feline Caviar, was not pleased with the painful, stressful regimen and resolved to use his background in pharmacology and nutrition, basing his research on what he learned while working on a design team in Germany for a flea medication, on making a better diet for his dog.
“Amazing changes started happening to Moguls’ skin and coat and overall health once he started eating Canine Caviar,” claims Baker. “Within four months, the skin was no longer pink and his hair grew back and glistened. From that day on until the time Moguls left us, he only had one more cortisone shot, due to a bee sting.” At the age of 13, the veterinarian told Mr. Baker that Moguls had just a few months to live. “I was going to do everything I could to let Moguls have quality of life and changed the formula now called Special Needs and started feeding Moguls the new diet,” continues Baker. “Moguls stayed on the food until the day he left us, but lived another four years, until age 17, on the Special Needs formula.”
After talking to others, Jeff found out there was a lot of concern with pet owners about what their pets were eating. Wanting to do better for others, he decided to create an entire line of holistic, alkaline dry foods and went into business. Canine Caviar was established in 1996 as a home-delivery service petfood. Today, Canine Caviar has expanded to include Feline Caviar and offers a dry line of foods, a wet line of canned food, treats, supplements and frozen foods for dogs and cats with a global distribution.
“Canine Caviar is the first true holistic petfood and the only grain-free, gluten-free and alkaline-based pet diet in the US that is specifically designed to help reduce the risk of cancer and other health related conditions,” claims Gary Ward, vice president of the company. “It is not the cure, but we provide the ingredients for a holistic and healthy lifestyle pet plan.” Their proprietary formula is meant to settle digestive upsets, reduce itching, scratching, shedding and hotspots, and offers a fermentation culture that provides a potent probiotic result. “This product was proven to be more effective than others in the marketplace through an independent study,” continues Ward. “It just makes sense—when your pet has better digestion it is better equipped to absorb and use the nutrition offered.”
Canine Caviar uses hormone-, pesticide- and antibiotic-free chicken, lamb, beaver, duck, venison and turkey, and they offer formulations for health concerns like diabetes, cancer, and kidney, liver and heart disease. Yucca Root is a key ingredient as it is purported to relieve joint pain and stiffness, and promotes cardiovascular health by improving circulation, lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, says the company.
In more recent developments, Canine Caviar has expanded to include Feline Caviar, and a full line of wet cat food has just hit the market. “It is doing very well on the market,” says Ward. “In just four months it is already 29% of our sales.” The wet cat food is also packaged in a plastic, recyclable, single-serve dish that is also BPA-free, says the company. A complete line of grain-free kibble for both dogs and cats is also a new product introduction Ward and Baker say is doing well.
“Historically, we have been first to market with new developments in petfood due to having our own R&D team,” closes Baker. “We hope for continued growth while remaining true to the highest quality of ingredients, evolving with technology and possibly, introducing new alternative proteins.”
