The insect-based fresh dog food brand challenging the industry

Tuggs, an insect-based fresh dog food brand, are Europe’s first to formulate freshly cooked pet food with insect protein.

The ‘ruffolutionary’ brand launched in late 2022, following founder Harry Bremner’s – who has been named in Forbes 30 under 30 – desire to counter the unsustainable and unhealthy nature of the dog food market.

While other dog food brands on the market have explored insect-based recipes, Tuggs is Europe’s first to formulate freshly cooked pet food with insect protein.

Insects are deemed to have 4% of the carbon footprint of beef, use 95% less land and 94% less water than beef for the same output of protein.

In the pet food industry, 20% of all farmed livestock is used for pet nutrition. To combat this, Tuggs is blending insect protein with meat, fish and vegetables to create a unique formulation that helps to reduce reliance on livestock and provide a balanced and nutritious meal with recipes including Cod Crew, Chicken Coup and Pork Power.

Harry Bremner, Founder of Tuggs says: “Our ‘fresh’ food is challenging the industry. We aim to offer meals that are freshly-prepared and gently cooked using the highest-quality ingredients and are delivered to the customer frozen. This helps to preserve the nutritional value, and ensures there’s no nasty byproducts, fillers, grains or artificial flavours. 

“Traditionally, dog food has been produced as extruded dry dog food in kibble form, or processed, wet dog food served in tins with a two year shelf life. Not only is this void of fresh ingredients, but it is inappropriately balanced with macronutrients and full of fillers that dogs cannot digest properly. Over half of dogs in the UK are obese, with a huge percentage dying prematurely from cancer. Diet is linked to all of these conditions, with research now showing that dogs fed fresh food live, on average, 32 months longer than dogs fed processed kibble.”

On the importance of insect protein for dogs, Katie McCaul, Pet Nutritionist at Tuggs says: “At Tuggs, 20% of our recipes include insect protein as we pride ourselves on ensuring recipes maintain a varied nutrition profile. 

“We use black soldier fly larvae, which contain up to 50% of high-quality protein, as well as necessary vitamins, fats, and all essential amino acids required to form a complete canine diet. They are also rich in antimicrobial, medium-chain fatty acids which have proven gut health benefits for dogs and have been proven to be as digestible as traditional meats.”

“Black soldier fly larvae contain more calcium than milk and more zinc and iron compared to traditional lean meats. This helps to ensure each recipe is highly nutritious, helping dogs keep healthy bones and a good metabolism.”

On the production process, Harry Bremner, Founder at Tuggs says: “We have key partnerships with insect farms in the UK to sustain the production of our recipes. 

“Insect farming follows a similar process to livestock farming; however, the process can be even more sustainable by feeding organic waste to insects such as orange peel, banana peel to coffee granules. This helps to create a circular economy.

“The process end-to-end can take 21 days compared to 56 days for poultry or 18 months for raising cows. According to the UN, in the next 50 years we will need to produce more food than has been produced in human history. Clearly doing so by increasing livestock farming is unfeasible; insect farming is the solution. “

Bremner adds: “We’re also seeing pet owners look for dog food with sustainable ingredients and credentials more and more as they look to not only lower their own carbon footprint, but also their pet’s carbon pawprint 

“Grain free, no fillers and hypoallergenic are all claims we’re seeing more demand for – and using insects as an ingredient caters to this perfectly.”

Featured Photo by James Barker on Unsplash.