New research has revealed that 25% of dog owners have considered tasting their dog’s food - but only 7% have actually tried it themselves. The findings, unveiled today by Butternut Box, the leading fresh dog food subscription service in Europe, follow the brand’s recent social experiment in which it served up it’s own fresh take on dog food to hungry Londoners as part of its Taste Test Challenge. 

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Butternut Box, a company founded on principles of taste-testing its own dog food, carried out the survey to demonstrate the low standards consumers expect from the pet food industry. Of the 400 respondents, 68% of UK dog owners have never considered eating their dog’s food. Quoted responses as to why not ranged from: “smells awful”, “sounds gross”, and “because it’s disgusting”, to ”because it could harm me” and “not sure if it’s ok for human consumption”.

Charlotte McCormack, Butternut Box’s Head of Product Development, who has over a decade of experience in the pet food industry, said of the findings: “It’s part of our quality-assurance process to taste-test  our meals and we actually enjoy doing it because all of our fresh recipes use tasty, human-grade ingredients. You won’t find many other pet food companies that are willing to regularly eat their own food.”

Last month, the leading subscription-based fresh dog food brand in Europe, who recently announced it had raised £40m of primary capital, challenged London to eat their dog food. Over 250 park-goers took the Taste Test Challenge held in Victoria Park over two weekends in July. The response was overwhelmingly positive, with one park-goer even declaring “it’s delicious, tastes just like Shepherd’s pie!”. 

Kevin Glynn, Butternut Box co-founder, says: “Good enough for your dog means good enough for us. We started Butternut Box to deliver health and happiness to dogs and their humans. We always ensure we’re serving healthy and quality ingredients that we happily eat ourselves.”

Co-founders Kevin Glynn and David Nolan delivered their first fresh meal in 2016. Butternut Box has since grown to become Europe's leading direct-to-consumer fresh dog food brand. Butternut’s innovative ‘fresh’ dog food has since been challenging expectations for the quality of ingredients used by the dog food industry.  “When we say human-quality, we mean it,” says David Nolan, Butternut Box co-founder. “No nasties, no grains, what you see is what you get. That’s what Butternut Box was founded on, fresh home-cooked meals. Our customers really see and notice the difference."