Everywhere you look, pet food brands are promising to be eco-friendly, responsibly sourced, or better for the planet. But what do those claims actually mean, and how can pet parents separate meaningful sustainability efforts from clever marketing? Hosts Jordan Tyler and Dr. Stephanie Clark are joined by Allison Reser Hamburger of the Pet Sustainability Coalition and Paul Shapiro, CEO of The Better Meat Co., to unpack why sustainability feels so complicated. Together, they explore the tradeoffs behind ingredient sourcing, packaging, alternative proteins, and more while debunking common misconceptions about sustainability in pet food.

Show Notes

🌐 Check out additional resources from:

• Pet Sustainability Coalition: https://petsustainability.org/
• Better Meat Co.: https://www.bmcingredients.com/

🌱 Learn more about Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): https://ecochain.com/blog/life-cycle-assessment-lca-guide/

👚👕 Read more about greenwashing in the fashion industry: https://changingmarkets.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/CM-License-to-greenwash-online-reports-layout-final.pdf

🍔 ...and across the food industry: https://changingmarkets.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Feeding-us-Greenwash-final.pdf

🔍 Did you know you can access pet food ingredient definitions online? Peep Chapter 6 of the AAFCO Official Publication, which carries nutritional standards for dogs and cats in the United States: https://www.aafco.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2025_OP_Chapter_6_enc.pdf

♻️ Tune in to our previous conversations about sustainability in pet care:

• Breaking the ‘Byproduct’ Bias: Rethinking Rendered Ingredients in Pet Food
• The Rising Tide of Invasive Species: How Pet Nutrition Could Be a Solution
• One Man’s Trash Is Another Dog’s Treasure: The Story of Upcycled Pet Food
• The Beautiful Story of Regenerative Agriculture: Does the Future of Pet Food Start with Soil?
• Looking for Love: Swiping Right on Sustainable Cat Litter
• Bug Appétit: From Ick to Innovation on Insect-Based Pet Food
• Is Recyclable Pet Food Packaging A Lie? Unraveling The Pet Industry’s Plastic Waste Problem

Episode Chapters

00:00 – Why Does Sustainability Feels So Complicated?

01:33 – Why We Don't Trust Sustainability Claims

06:06 – Sustainability Is All About Tradeoffs

07:09 – Greenwashing: Fact vs. Marketing

09:05 – Debunking Sustainability Myths in Pet Food

18:01 – The Future of Alternative Proteins

23:04 – Measuring Real Sustainability Progress

26:25 – Why Sustainable Products Often Cost More

33:04 – Remember: It’s About Progress Over Perfection

35:07 – How to Shop Smarter & Ask Better Questions

37:02 – The Future of Sustainable Pet Food

40:40 – Closing Thoughts & Stay Tuned!

Jordan Tyler

If you've walked down the aisle at your local store lately, you've probably seen words like eco-friendly, responsibly sourced, environmentally conscious, or even just green. Right? Slapped across bags, boxes and all the company websites behind them. The problem is figuring out what those terms actually mean and whether they mean anything at all.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Yet you and I, and most other pet owners out there, are generally wanting to make decisions that are really good for both their furry friends and the planet, right? But when prices continue to rise, information feels contradictory and companies seem to make bigger, bolder promises like we've seen before, and this often feels like an impossible task.

Jordan Tyler

That's why in today's episode. We'll explore why sustainability feels so complicated, why sustainable products often cost more than ones that aren't specifically sustainable. How to spot meaningful claims from marketing buzzwords, and what practical steps consumers can take towards sustainability without feeling too overwhelmed.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

So, whether you're deeply invested in sustainability or simply trying to make informed decisions without getting lost in the marketing, this episode is definitely for you.

Jordan Tyler

Welcome to Barking Mad, a podcast powered by BSM Partners.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

We're your hosts, Dr. Stephanie Clark—

Jordan Tyler

—and I'm Jordan Tyler.

Jordan Tyler

Jordan Tyler

We're just not buying it. Fewer than 1 in 5 say that. They just believe those claims at face value. So you see a bag and you see a claim and you say, “Yeah, that's probably true.” One in—fewer than 1 in 5 people do that. I know I am not that half of a person. I'm definitely in the skeptic camp.

Jordan Tyler

But despite all that skepticism, right, we have 60 to 69% of pet owners saying that they do research on sustainability before they purchase a product from a company or purchase a product outright. So, like they're trying, they care and they want to do it right. They just feel like they're being lied to or, I don't know, like everything's being greenwashed.

Jordan Tyler

And that kind of sucks.

Jordan Tyler

Right, exactly. But yeah, I think there's multiple things in the current landscape right now that are contributing to this and Steph, what do you think some of those are?

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Oh goodness. So, I think there's a couple of different things. Like everything, I think there's a couple of different things... I think there's just a lot of information, a lot of whether it's right, wrong and different. There's a lot of marketing, there's a lot of claims. There's a lot of

Dr. Stephanie Clark

people, brands saying sustainable. But like, what truly is sustainable? What does it really even mean? Is your packaging sustainable? Are you carbon neutral? Are you purchasing land to then plant trees? Like what does sustainable truly mean? So I think that like in and of itself, baseline is utterly confusing. It confuses me. I'm like, oh, sustainable. But then when I started formulating and doing all this innovation, I'm like, well, where where's your line is sustainable?

Jordan Tyler

Totally. Yeah. And it feels different for every brand and every company too. Right? And so that makes it even more confusing because there's like there's no standard. So yeah, no wonder we’re confused. And then you pair that with things like, you know, just rising prices in general economic uncertainty and tension and just the growing skepticism that we kind of have as consumers toward corporations.

Jordan Tyler

Right? We just we feel like corporations have forgotten about us. And that's really deep in this sense of consumer mistrust across really all sorts of categories, certainly not just in pet food, but in pet food.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Well, and I was talking to someone last night and they made a really interesting comment when it was, what is the landscape of pet kind of look like for the future? And I was like, it's open, right? Like the world is our sustainable oyster. You can kind of go into whatever direction. And their response was, don't you think we have too many options, that it's just utterly overwhelming?

Dr. Stephanie Clark

And I'm like, oh, I guess when you take a step back, like, if you're an entrepreneur, now's the time to get in. But if you're a pet owner, which one of these 50 bags on this one wall and this one aisle of these many stores am I going to pick…?

Jordan Tyler

So true.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

And that alone, like… paralysis by analysis. Guilty. Amen.

Jordan Tyler

Yeah, yeah. No. Even people that, like, have this industry inside knowledge, like you and I like, were still confused. And that speaks to how confusing this is. So yeah, we're frustrated. We're not the only ones that are frustrated.

Jordan Tyler

But joining us today and solidarity is Allison Reser Hamburger, director of sustainability and innovation with the Pet Sustainability Coalition, who's super, super knowledgeable about sustainability and pet care. But she'll be one of the first to admit it can be a confusing and frustrating topic.

Allison Reser Hamburger

Sustainability is basically weighing all of your trade offs like that. That is what this work is of like, okay, I have this thing. If I send it to rendering, it's going to take energy, but then it's going to get used like, what are my other options and what is the best total outcome. And that's where it gets really complicated because sometimes the energy is worse.

Allison Reser Hamburger

But like the land use is better, or like the trade offs get really complicated. And that's where like a company who has goals in all areas can kind of do this juggling.

Allison Reser Hamburger

Just like PSA tells companies all the time, like progress is better than perfection. Like no company can be perfectly sustainable. No human can be perfectly sustainable either.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

So just in case you don't feel guilty, just a general in life, we feel guilty about the ability. And we feel guilty about what we feed our pets, even when we're trying to do our best. For those of us who are moms, we have mom guilt. Just bring on all the guilt. But why is that? And personally, I think it's due to the lack of standards like we had talked about around sustainability claims.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Coming back to that dreaded word greenwashing, there is a ton of sustainability language out there, like planet friendly and eco-conscious, and those terms don't really mean anything at all.

Jordan Tyler

My personal favorite I think is just green. It's like, that's actually just a color though. So. But.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

The green M&M, it’s sustainable—it’s the only one.

Jordan Tyler

Yeah so but yeah, no greenwashing. It happens. It's everywhere. Like we said earlier, it doesn't just happen in pet. It happens across fashion in the automobile industry, electronics, airlines, furniture and yeah, obviously pet food as well. And I wanted to share

Jordan Tyler

Jordan Tyler

So a lot of these were fast fashion brands. So not the most sustainable anyway. But some of these fast fashion brands are making sustainable claims. And so we want to know how true those claims actually are. Turns out 59% of all green claims couldn't be substantiated, according to Changing Markets Foundation and H&M, which touts its H&M conscious tag, which is green, by the way, on some of its clothing to indicate sustainability.

Jordan Tyler

It was actually one of the worst offenders, 96% of H&M green claims being pretty much bogus. So yeah, we don't love that and we can see right why? We have a mistrust for sustainability claims. And there are plenty of examples in pet food, and I wanted to kind of go through some of those. The first one being drumroll please, everybody's going to be shocked.

Jordan Tyler

Human grade is always better. And to speak on that a little bit, you guys have heard suffering and I talk about it before, but we're not alone. Let's hear from Allison.

Allison Reser Hamburger

I think people assume that this means it's better for their pet, it's better for the environment, potentially it's better quality and what it actually means.

Allison Reser Hamburger

It's a regulated term. That just means that every ingredient that is in that finished product has to be stored and handled and processed in compliance with how human food would be. And so, yes, like that can mean different parts of the animal. But my wish for that claim is that pet owners understood that actually pet food, similarly to human food, also has to be safe and produced in sanitary conditions and truthfully labeled.

Allison Reser Hamburger

And so even if it's not human grade labeled, it's still regulated and likely a very safe product for your pet. And when it comes to sustainability, there is definitely an opportunity for the pet industry to complement the human food industry by feeding our pets to stuff that we don't like to eat.

Jordan Tyler

So yeah. Human grade. It sounds really cool. It sounds like it's awesome. The best thing that we could give our pets. But it has nothing to do with sustainability. And in some ways, it's actually working against sustainability goals that we're trying to accomplish as an industry.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

I was actually talking to someone about human grade and they're like, yeah, but it's so much more healthier. It's so much more nutritious. And I was like, yeah, cupcake is human grade.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Oh, never mind. And I was like, yeah, it's okay.

Jordan Tyler

Just don't let it happen again.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

So anyway, second waiting to byproducts, as Allison alluded to, the use of rendered ingredients is one of the most sustainable practices that the pet food industry has.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

And it's been doing it for a long, long time. Like, guys, it's it's really it's fine. What you put in really matters, but you can have a quality product on the end.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

But clever, clever marketing. Oh, marketing… has turned consumers against this. And it's actually turning consumers against sustainability because you have to think about it in this way. And I'll go on this tangent and I'll reel it back in. If we don't eat it and we don't use it, it's going to go in our landfills, right? So, if you haven’t listened already and you still want to hear our lovely voices, check out our recent episodes: “Breaking the Byproduct Bias,” because we’re not pulling any punches back. So, if you want to listen to that, find it in our show notes below. So, jumping to that, let’s talk about the next myth. You know us—we love debunking myths, we love talking about what everyone else doesn’t want to talk about. Let’s talk about the word “natural.” That automatically means it’s better for the environment, right? Natural = better for our health, better for the environment? Right, Jordan?

Jordan Tyler

How many times do we have to say it?

Allison Reser Hamburger

The second claim is natural. People think that this means that it is, again, environmentally friendly.

Allison Reser Hamburger

It's less processed, it's healthier, it's premium. Potentially. Those are the associations. When we hear natural

Allison Reser Hamburger

It just has to have only ingredients derived from plants, animals or mineral sources.

Allison Reser Hamburger

It can go through processing and it can't have any artificial substances. And so like that is the technical definition. So potentially that association with less processed is is true. But it does not have anything to do with environmental impact at all. So that is just a false association that I would like to move away from.

Jordan Tyler

Yeah, we've shared this example before, but arsenic. Arsenic is natural. It's also a deadly toxin. Most methane is natural. It's also one of the most prominent greenhouse gases contributing to climate change. Palm oil is a plant based natural product. It's also one of the key culprits of deforestation worldwide, and resulted in habitat loss that negatively impacts the diversity of our ecosystem.

Jordan Tyler

So all of these things considered, do not prove that natural automatically means better for the environment or better for your health. It's trying to mean that it really, really wants to mean that, but it doesn't. It just doesn't.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

So, in case you’re still listening and we haven’t totally just assaulted your ears with facts… Just kidding…

Dr. Stephanie Clark

The next myth let's talk about high protein equals higher quality. Oh, goodness. Don't get me on the soapbox. But you—

Jordan Tyler

Get on, get on it.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

—you said Steph, handle protein. And I'm going to just climb up on my soapbox. And protein is just one nutrient. And the whole scheme of all these required nutrients that we need and nutrition as a whole is not just about protein.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

It's not about protein or meat. First, it's not about higher protein, higher quality, better. It's about balance, right? Like hum, we need all balance in life. And protein is just one of them.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

But let's take that a step further. Protein balance and protein requirements are drastically different, not only from cats and dogs, because we know that dogs are not large cats and cats are not small dogs.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

But also, within those species we're talking various factors like life stage, activity level. I mean, what you're going to feed a kitten or a puppy is not the same thing that you're going to feed Annie, who's 14 years old, sleeping next to my feet right now. Homegirl is not burning through the protein like she just she isn't. And even taking that a step further, depending on their conditions that they may have as they get older, or maybe just genetically, they have some different conditions that can actually affect protein requirements.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

So high protein all the time isn't always the best thing, but it's also not really great for our environment. It's not great for our grocery budget. Protein is literally the most expensive nutrient when all when we break it all down, it's our most expensive nutrient. It's our pets. So let's think about like why it is so expensive. Not only is it the sexy nutrient because we have to have it, we need it all.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

But protein is often one of the most resource intensive components of our pet food. If you're thinking this, you know the cost that it takes and all the resources for like our livestock, that's mainly protein, but it's going into pet food, it's going into our food. So you have to think about like sustainability wise, resource wise, it's very expensive.

Jordan Tyler

It's really—it's not about protein doesn't equal anything. Protein is just protein. It's a nutrient that we need. But we also need a bunch of other nutrients. So yeah, it's part of the puzzle right. We can all agree proteins and essential macronutrient for us and for our animals.

Jordan Tyler

Right. But we've kind of come to this point where we're not going to have enough protein to feed all the people and pets that are going to inhabit the Earth in the not too distant future, right? Protein supplies are plateauing. Demand keeps rising. We're seeing high protein in everything

Jordan Tyler

We need to find better—Exactly. Literally. Coffee. I see protein ice cream now.

Jordan Tyler

I'm like, please just let me have my ice cream.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Protein Pop Tarts! Let me tell you, I’m not eating Pop Tarts because I’m getting my protein in, okay?

Jordan Tyler

I'm eating it as a little treat. Okay? Like, let's be so for real…

Jordan Tyler

But yeah, we just need to find better, better sources, more sustainable sources and sources that can complement our current supply of animal based and plant based proteins. Because, you know, we're not saying we need to stop eating protein. That's not what we're saying at all.

Jordan Tyler

We're just saying we need to find better ways to get it, in better ways to feed it, to sustain the population and the planet. So…

Jordan Tyler

To speak to that a little bit. We have our second guest today. His name is Paul Shapiro. He's the co-founder and CEO of the Better Meat Company, which is taking exactly this kind of alternative approach to protein, in part inspired by Paul's own personal experiences.

Paul Shapiro

When I was a young teenager, somebody showed me this video and ordered enough that this video meant back then, like a VHS on a VCR. Like there was no YouTube or internet.

Paul Shapiro

And my friend showed me this video that was basically showing what it's like for animals who are used for food and what it's like for them when they are confined in cages where they can barely move an inch their entire lives, or when they are put into slaughterhouses.

Paul Shapiro

So, I wouldn't want any animal to be treated like that. And the fact that they were pigs rather than dogs was very immaterial to me. I thought, no animal deserves this type of abuse.

Jordan Tyler

Yeah. We all know somebody who's watched Food, Inc. and gone vegan as a result. Shout out my little sister. I see you and hear you. But as a result of Paul's experience learning about the way that industrialized protein production systems work, he actually decided to write a book.

Paul Shapiro

It's called “Clean Meat: Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner in the World.”

Paul Shapiro

And from there, I ended up deciding that maybe instead of just writing about the people who are pioneering food technologies that could help render the use of animals for food obsolete, maybe it would just become one of them myself. And so that's in a nutshell, more than three decades of the history of my life that have been devoted to trying to reduce the suffering of animals, in large part through the creation of new technologies that might make our use of them less important to us.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

So this is the next evolution of protein? Not well. Okay, not really a revolution and not a total replacement, but the exploration of a viable alternative protein that could either complement or coexist as a protein supply without taxing the environment that we already have is, I think, something really cutting edge and unfortunately, sorry, not many people are jumping on it.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

I don't know why, but according to Paul, much like we evolved from using whale oil to kerosene, from horses to carts to cars, adopting alternative proteins like Miko proteins is simply really the next step in the evolution of mankind and really pet food.

Paul Shapiro

If you think about like, energy, right? So we have been using fossil fuels for a long time now. We want to move away from fossil fuels. And there's lots of different ways that we could do that. We could use wind energy, solar energy, geothermal energy, nuclear energy and so on.

Paul Shapiro

Well, similarly, there's lots of different ways that we can try to recreate the meat experience without animals. One of them is plant-based meat. So, taking crops like soybeans or wheat or peas and converting them into things that taste like animal meat, another is called clean meat or cultivated meat, which is basically taking animal cells and growing them outside of an animal's body to create real, actual animal meat, but simply divorced from having to use the animal.

Paul Shapiro

And then the third is what we at the Better Meat Co., which is instead of using plants and instead of using animals, we use fungi. And so we're growing microbial fungi. Not mushrooms, we're growing mycelium or the root like structure of fungi. And that fungi that we grow, which we call rhisa-mycoprotein is not only has a very meat like texture, but it also is packed with protein and fiber.

Paul Shapiro

And so in a single serving, if you compare it to, let's say, other foods, our mycoprotein is not only an all natural whole food that we create through fermentation, but it also has more protein than eggs. And it's a complete protein, meaning it has all the essential amino acids. It's got more iron than beef, more zinc than beef, more potassium than bananas, more fiber than it is a true superfood.

Paul Shapiro

And so you get all the things about meat that you want texture, protein, iron, zinc, but you don't get the things about methane, you don't want animal cruelty, saturated fat, cholesterol, environmental degradation, and more. And so as we look into the future and we see that more and more humans are going to be on the planet, we have 8 billion of us today, and there's going to be 10 billion of us in another 25 years.

Paul Shapiro

The question is, how are we going to feed all of us? Right. All these people are going to want to eat meat.

Paul Shapiro

And so the question is, how can we produce enough food and enough protein for these billions of people who are going to be on the planet and the rest of us, too?

Paul Shapiro

And the reality is that we cannot do this by going big with animal agriculture. We have to do it by going small with microbial agriculture.

Jordan Tyler

So, the name of the game for sustainable innovation. And I'm going to get a little nerdy here. So fast forward if you need to. But this is some juicy tea and you're going to want it. So just bear with me here. It's life cycle analysis or LCA. This is a study. It looks at the entire life cycle of an ingredient, how and where it's sourced, how it's transported, process, refined, blended, transported.

Jordan Tyler

Again, everything that goes into the making of this finished ingredient to determine whether it's more or less sustainable than something else. So this is where the idea of trade offs remember, Allison said, sustainability is really all about trade offs. This is where that concept really comes into play, where one ingredient may require less land and water to grow in a harvest, it could be surprisingly complicated and resource intensive to process and transport.

Jordan Tyler

So like we could have be using way more energy in that process. We could drive up the ingredients total carbon footprint, even though from a sourcing perspective, the numbers look really awesome. So that's what makes it super, super important for any brand that's seeking some kind of sustainability claim or some sort of kind of sustainability swap, like an ingredient swap to do the research, to do the comparative study through the LCA, to figure out exactly what those trade offs are and how you know, how to inform the decision that we're going to make on how we're going to move forward.

Jordan Tyler

Because, you know, you don't know until you know. And then when you know, you can make a more informed decision.

Jordan Tyler

Anyway, the Better Meat company has done the LCAs, done its homework on mycoprotein, and they found some pretty compelling sustainability benefits from the ingredient.

Paul Shapiro

Life cycle analysis shows that mycoprotein takes up a tiny fraction of the resources needed to raise cattle for food, as an example, like literally 99% less land and far fewer greenhouse gas emissions and more. And so even if you aren't concerned about the treatment of the animals, who we are farming. If you want more space for wildlife, right.

Paul Shapiro

If you want to have more wild spaces where wildlife can exist in their habitat, we shouldn't be cutting down all of these trees so that we can graze cattle or grow crops for farmed animals. Instead, we can leave these forests intact or reforest them and just grow micro protein instead. And so this is one of the best ways that I can see, at least in order to reduce our own footprint.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

So, when in doubt, ask for those LCAs. Show it. Let's see it. Let me see them eyes. And if they don't have it, they aren't working on one. But continue to make these bold, sexy sustainability claims. Timeout. Red flag. No way. But again, like you said Jordan. And like Alison said, it's all about trade offs. So sustainability or sustainable inventions?

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Nope. Sustainable innovations can't possibly check every box.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

And that's why we need a diverse range of solutions. Or we really should have a diverse range of solutions and initiatives working together to make a greater, greener impact.

Jordan Tyler

Yeah. The challenge definitely—it's not that we don't have great ideas or great solutions that we can try to implement the challenge. It's really figuring out how to mobilize those ideas from products that are super niche. Right? Like you just said, not a lot of people are catching on to alternative protein sources. And that's kind of a shame.

Jordan Tyler

What we need to do is move these more niche ideas into the mainstream. Or at least that's what I think that we need to do. I'm not a, you know, not a grand strategist or anything like that, but

Jordan Tyler

At this point y'all are probably thinking okay, great fun fungi sounds super cool. My dog might eat a bug. Upcycled ingredients makes sense, but why does every sustainable product seem to cost way more?

Dr. Stephanie Clark

And it's because most of us, or for most of us, it's not like we want to be unsustainable, right? Like, spare the straw. I'll be sustainable that way. But part of the answer is, of course, economics always comes down to economics, and sustainability requires finding better solutions. Sure, but those solutions can't make a notable impact if they aren't being produced and implemented at scale.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

And what we're talking about is really, you can't do things in a small little box. You have to do things large for it to make a large impact and, and be relatively cost savvy, or at least not hitting your pocketbooks so hard.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Many sustainable ingredients are simply newer and are being produced at scale. That needs to be implemented to be able to use them across the industry. We're talking like insect protein. It's really a great example, right. So

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Here's a snippet from Liz Koutsos, president of black soldier fly larvae ingredient producer, Enviroflight.

Liz Koutsos

We're ten years into this. Maybe we've been in operation and commercial scale for like six. And I think our colleagues in the industry that are doing well and growing are right around that 6 or 7 years in commercial scale. That's nothing. We're still in our infancy and that comes with higher costs.

Jordan Tyler

So limited scale also impacts availability, right? When something's less available, that's usually justification to make it more expensive.

Jordan Tyler

According to Pierre-Luc Gingras, president and owner of a few pet food and care brands, including an insect based pet food, wild or harrier, he says black soldier fly larva ingredients, while not necessarily cheap, are significantly less expensive than other insect protein ingredients like crickets.

Pierre-Luc Gingras

So crickets, for example, would be $25,000 at times, which blacks black shoulder fly would be $6,000 at times. So it's almost five times shipper. And the reason why is cheaper is it's easier to do a mass production of those black shoulder fly, and it's faster as well.

Jordan Tyler

So you have scale, you have availability, then you have demand. And demand for more sustainable food is kind of tricky, right? First and foremost, we're all looking for a safe product that will support our pets health and well-being. From there, the door to sustainability claims open. But when we're contending with price and just considering our general distrust of sustainability claims, this is where the bottom really falls out.

Jordan Tyler

We've seen this for upcycled ingredients,

Jordan Tyler

And we also heard it for invasive species like green crab and Asian carp, as illustrated by Deb Suchman, co-founder and co-owner of Polkadog.

Deb Suchman

Just because of sustainable doesn't mean people are going to spend more money on it, and it's just more about how do you fit that into their lifestyle. And part of that is talking about, you know, is it sustainable, but it also has health benefits. And people may want to lead a sustainable lifestyle, but they might not want to pay extra for it.

Deb Suchman

So, like… it's a lot to fit in. So I think it's not just enough to be trying to be a good, sustainable company. You have to really be mindful of cost and you have to be talking about like how that affects the health benefits for their dog.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

So what we consistently find that even pet owners who claim on surveys

Dr. Stephanie Clark

to spend X amount more for sustainable pet food. Still experience sticker shock in the checkout line, right? Guilty.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

This also fluctuates depending on where you are in the world. When asked whether they pay more for pet food made with local ingredients, 95% of French pet owners said yes. But only 69 of UK owners said the same.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

And for our eco friendly packaging, 66% of Belgian pet owners said that they would pay more for it, compared to 76% of pet owners right here in the US.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

So the willingness is there. Absolutely. But it's not universal. And that even erodes faster when you get to the register.

Jordan Tyler

Yeah. No, it's such a good point because I think right now most pet food companies are passing on these costs, you know, more sustainable ingredients and more sustainable practices, maybe in the plant or in distribution. They're passing those extra costs down to consumers. You know, we're starting to see a shift from an individual accountability, right.

Jordan Tyler

Make sure you recycle and you can save the Earth! To corporate responsibility, which is I mean, long been debated when it comes to the way that we should tackle all of this.

Allison Reser Hamburger

Is it up to companies to be like, I have a responsibility to only put on shelves something that is not coming at the cost of the environment?

Allison Reser Hamburger

And this is a perennial debate in the sustainability world of like, does individual action or does corporate action mean more? And I swing back and forth in my beliefs. But for this conversation, I would like to swing over to the company responsibility side, because I really I don't think it's fair to like, ask customers to be like, you have to pay more.

Allison Reser Hamburger

Like I think it is the… a business can just have so much more impact. They can have impact on at scale. They can figure out how to build out these supply chains, that there's lower costs in a future.

Allison Reser Hamburger

I want to say we have a lot of work to do because from my perspective, a lot of the pet food brands that are leading and sustainability do come at some amount of cost premium.

Allison Reser Hamburger

And this is just like a huge problem to solve. But that being said, I don't think that that is always a black and white area because again, bringing up byproducts like byproducts could have less environmental impact. They also could be less expensive. So there are like some sneaky things that make a product sustainable and also make it might make it less expensive.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

So, what exactly are we supposed to do with this information first? Hang on. Feel better. Right? Deep breaths. Everything's going to be good. Feel better. Give yourself some grace and all things in life. Everything. At the beginning of the episode, we were talking about guilt, even mom guilt. Give yourself grace for everything. You don't need to decode every label.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

We really don't. We barely do. Or by the most expensive option to be sustainable. You don't have to get those fancy paper straws. It exists on a spectrum, like most things in life, and there are ways to match your lifestyle to the types of eco friendly, sustainable initiatives you want to support. And then second, it's about progress. We're all in this journey of sustainability throughout life.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

And so it's about progress, not perfection. We've said it before, it's not about perfection. So sustainability again, it's about trade offs, trade offs, trade offs, trade offs… and one brand's version of sustainability may look really, really different than the next. And that's okay, right? Spectrum. We're all on the sustainability journey. It just means that they have different problems to solve in order to be their most sustainable

Allison Reser Hamburger

PSC has plenty of members that are selling human grade products. And I also feel like there's nothing wrong with that. I think like they just have a different set of sustainability strategies to tackle. So like for them, like maybe regenerative beef or regenerative products is a key focus area. Because if you're going to take that really prime cut of meat, then like, how can you use that process to then create some good in the world?

Allison Reser Hamburger

So again, like there's there's no right answer. It's like you can have a game of trade offs in that space as well.

Jordan Tyler

What does meaningful progress actually look like for you and I for pet parents listening today? I think it starts with asking better questions. Right? Instead of going into a store, going online and asking whether a product is sustainable, right?

Jordan Tyler

We know that's not enough. We want to know what specifically makes it sustainable. What goals has the company set in terms of sustainability? How are they measuring success? And are they being transparent about the way that they're getting there? Right. We've said this before. Companies that are genuinely committed to what they're doing are going to be proud, loud and proud to discuss these things with you.

Jordan Tyler

So just ask the question. Ask the brand directly. Ask the retailer that you're shopping at. And if you can't get a good answer, the answer probably doesn't exist. And that should that should be that should be your answer.

Jordan Tyler

So a few more tips here. Alison's tried-and-true tips for pet parents wanting to dig deeper and ask more questions and get better answers about sustainability claims they see on pack.

Allison Reser Hamburger

If you are shopping in person, I actually feel like ask find a store employee and say where is your sustainability section and where do you have sustainable products in store? Do you have a recommendation about a product that is really good for the environment? I'll be honest, every time I do that, the retailer is like, what?

Allison Reser Hamburger

If you're going straight to the brands. I would really drill in on goals, so asking or trying to figure out if a brand has set any sustainability goals and then not just what have they set, but where are they tracking their progress? So is it a specific metric? And then how long have they been tracking it?

Allison Reser Hamburger

What is their plan to get better over time? Those kinds of goal related questions hold companies accountable to just being transparent about what they're up to and trying to be better.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

And, just in case you need another reminder, there are many paths to sustainability. It can include ingredient sourcing, manufacturing practices, packaging, transportation and it can also include food waste reduction. And that's just listing a few. Sometimes the most sustainable thing a company is doing isn’t even printed on the front of the bag. So, as we wrap up today, it’s clear: the pet industry sustainability journey will be a long, very windy road, involving ongoing innovation, experimentation, and continuous improvement.

Jordan Tyler

Totally agree. And I think, you know, despite all the kind of doom and gloom that surrounds sustainability and we can get kind of bogged down by how overwhelming it feels, I think that's kind of what excites me most. Right? Not thinking about where we are at today, but where we could be in ten, 20, 50 years from now.

Jordan Tyler

And I know that that excites Alison and Paul as well.

Paul Shapiro

The future is going to be won by those who can manufacture food in the most efficient way,

Paul Shapiro

And it's really important for the United States, and frankly, every nation, to prioritize this type of efficient protein production by looking at animal free protein sources, whether it's through fermentation of microbes or whether it is through plant based proteins or even animal cell cultured.

Paul Shapiro

You might have like a bread maker or an ice cream maker on your kitchen counter right now. But what if you go to meet maker? You know, you could just buy like little spores of fungi and drop them in and come back by next morning. And you have freshly brewed mycoprotein on your counter right there.

Paul Shapiro

Like that would be pretty awesome. It sounds like the Jetsons, but I think it's like, not that hard to imagine.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

If you leave here today with one insight, let it be this: sustainability isn't about perfection. It's about progress.

Jordan Tyler

Exactly. There is no single ingredient packaging, format, certification, or brand promise that's magically going to solve every environmental challenge. We know that sustainability is ultimately a series of trade offs, trade offs, trade offs, and understanding those trade offs is often more important than chasing the latest trend or meaningless marketing claim.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

And you heard it today. The consumers have more influence than they sometimes realize.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

The question we have to ask, the products we support, and the expectations we place on companies all help shape the direction of this industry.

Jordan Tyler

At the same time, meaningful change can't rest entirely on you and I and consumers as individuals, right? Companies have a responsibility to improve transparency, invest in better solutions, and make sustainable choices more accessible, aka affordable.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

And remember when you're looking at all those bags. And if it becomes overwhelming, which we all know it can be, you don't need to decode every label or by the most expensive product on the shelf to really make that difference. Stay curious, ask questions, and make informed decisions is where you can make the largest impact.

Jordan Tyler

And if you'd like to dig deeper into pet industry sustainability initiatives and stories, check out today's show notes for links to our past episodes on insect protein, upcycled ingredients, byproducts, invasive species, regenerative agriculture. And I think there's even a few more

Jordan Tyler

A huge thank you to Allison Reser Hamburger and Paul Shapiro for sharing their time and insights with us today.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Thank you for tuning in to the Barking Mad Podcast. If you'd like to learn more about BSM Partners, please visit us at www.bsmpartners.net.

Dr. Stephanie Clark

Don't forget to follow us on your favorite leading podcast platform. And if you found today's episode useful, share it with a friend.

Jordan Tyler

We'd like to thank our dedicated podcast team: Jacob Parker, Cady Wolf, Neeley Bowden Lewis, Ada-Miette Thomas, and Anna Guilfoyle. A special shout out to David Perez for the original music. See you next time!