Vegdog from Munich provides vegan dog food. Tessa fences-Figlar and Valerie Henssen are the managing Directors and founders. In 2017, they have reached about 100 000, in 2018 about 500 000 and 2019, with close to a Million euros in sales. They employ three full-time employees and seven freelancers. In 2018, they were in the Vox TV show “die höhle der Löwen”. You got from Dagmar Wöhrl, a start-up grant.
Potential customers were on the dog food carefully. We started with wet food. Now Vegdog offers Wet and dry food for all ages. “We had the Vision to start a business, the protection of animals and love of Animals combined in one product,” says fences-Figlar. To create the first purely plant-based and 100 percent coverage of complete feed for dogs. Six times 400 grams of wet food cost just 21 Euro, 2 kilograms of dry food about 15 Euro.
The dog food is particularly suitable for dogs that have a food intolerance, as the dog of Merle Schöpp, a customer of Vegdog. “Our dog comes from a shelter in Spain, and which has in its body the parasites that feed on the breakdown products of proteins. Thus, his immune system is weakened,“ says Schöpp. So, the entire cellular metabolism in the affected device. “In 2015, he would have died of his illness, almost, which is why we are on a vegan diet and switched.” Since then, he was “super munter”.
Is met the nutrient requirements?
The veterinary Specialist for small animals-Martin Bucksch says: “For Allergy-free vegan diet may make sense, since these mostly on animal Protein are allergic to it.” After Vegdog but all dogs vegan can be fed. Bucksch sees the rather critical: “Through nutrient analysis, you can detect whether the nutrient needs will be covered. Up until now, I have never seen any analysis of vegan dog food, which was good.“ An analysis of Vegdog-lining, he has not seen yet.
fences-Figlar explains: “We bring no dog food on the market, which has not been pre-checked by analyses of Skilled veterinarians, for example, the full requirement coverage of our food can be guaranteed by means of.” Veterinarian Bucksch, however, sees a Problem: “For one thing, dogs have different nutritional needs than humans, for example, the calcium requirements of dogs is three times higher than that of the people. The other dogs have a certain sense of taste that we humans have not, for meat flavor.“
Vegdog also the environment is important. “The production of meat consumed compared to the production of a plant-based source of protein proven to more resources. Dogs need meat, but proteins.“ Vegdog used vegetable Protein, such as lupins, lentils and peas. The wet food consists of, for example, from potatoes, amaranth, millet, carrots, spinach, Zucchini, Chia seeds, sunflower seeds, yeast, algae, sweet potatoes, canola oil, Red beets, pumpkin seeds, rose hips and herbs.
