raw food...business brainstorm

[damienApbt]

i've been doing some research lately. every website has a different opinion so i always get confused.

what im interested in is feeding an entire chicken carcass. WTF?? is it as crazy as the visual i have ? does anyone know anything about it.? it says one carcass a day maybe 1 1/2. would that be good to only have that??

also i've heard that premixed raw is a bad idea. that when taken out of its whole form that it takes away from the dogs benefit and many other problems as well.

my best friend is one of the greater chefs in the philly area and he and i got to talking. when discussing a raw food diet, for dogs, he noted how it was very similar to some other cultures ways of "cooking." any way, we came up with a great idea to produce, on a small scale, organic raw premixed diets, while still encouraging some whole carcass eating.

our other friend cooked under the best chef in NYC and when he started, all he did was prepare raw food for the chef's 2 mastiffs, every day.its surprisingly similar to preparing food for humans. we could use the same purveyers and farmers that the restaurant uses. and it would be cheap to buy for everyone else.

would this still be a bad idea???
it would all be done in a comercial kitchen w/ all human grade products and equipment. packaged, frozen and sold localy.

[blover27]

i wanna be in on the ground floor damien! we'll be rich! sounds like a good idea to me

[jmann4]

most definitely a good idea. It's hard to find any good pre-made raw food for my dogs.

[damienApbt]

i wanna be in on the ground floor damien! we'll be rich! sounds like a good idea to me

you can be our prep guy.. then clean all the dishes and machinery....oh yeah dont forget to mop the floors.

[pollypop]

A whole carcass is great, as long as it's feather and organs and everything, but it seems like an awful lot of food! I'm assuming you mean just... a dead chicken, and not the kind of thing that you can find at some markets, where it's basically bones and cartilage for making stock.

I try to feed my dogs about 2% of their body weight per day on a raw/home-cooked diet. That works out to just over a pound a day for my dogs, who are between 50 and 60 pounds. The average chicken is, what, four or five pounds? That would be enough chicken for a 200-250 pound dog!

(Plus, I like to feed my dogs veggies. Not a lot of them, but more than you'd find in your average chicken corpse.)

Personally, I disagree that premixing raw or cooking meat destroys its healthfulness that much. If we were talking about frozen and thawed meat versus something that was just killed, then yeah, I can see that the enzymes would be destroyed by freezing. But since most of us buy meat from the supermarket or butcher, and it's been dead and packed in ice for a while, I just don't see what the big deal is with keeping it dead and frozen for a bit longer.

I think as long as you and your friend can provide a good food with a minimum of preservatives, now's a great time to try it! Raw feeding is very popular, but a lot of people are reluctant to try it because it seems too complicated or "icky." If you can market your product, and get it out there, try it! I think it's a great idea.

[blover27]

you can be our prep guy.. then clean all the dishes and machinery....oh yeah dont forget to mop the floors.

hmmm oh well...gotta start somewhere

[damienApbt]

hmmm oh well...gotta start somewhere

oh quit your sobbin..

[barbponys]

I feed carcasses, half a chicken for the pits, twice a week or so. I don't agree that premade diets are bad. As long as they use raw foods and the quality is there..........it works.

If you can get the food made and marketed well it should work for you Damien. Look at bottom line cost, most retailers mark raw up about 40-50%, the market won't handle much more than that. It prices things to high for most to pay. If you do your own distribution and delivery that's cool, if you go through a distributor keep in mind they have a mark-up they charge the retailer so............look at the possible retail prices to give you an idea of what it will cost the consumer. Is it worth your time and effort??

[damienApbt]

thats where me opening a quality dog store comes into play. some time in the future i plan on having my own shop with food you cant find in the city. which wont be hard considering only one store sells wellness and thats it....

then along with all the other great food, including a lot of organic ones, i can offer my organic raw food as well.

[HugABull1]

does this mean you've officially gone BARF Damien? I've been thinking about starting up a small raw-food business here, but I have to explore whether it will be cost effective or not. It's on my to-do list

I'm curious barbponys, you say you feed half a chicken carcass - is that guts and all? Or cleaned and plucked? Do you feed veggies too?

I think the problem with a lot of pre-made raw foods is that many of them have too much veggie and/or grain in them. I think even the "high meat" ones have like 20-30% veggies? And if I wasn't doing it myself (ie, buying premade food), I'd be worried about not enough bone or bone meal in the food...

[damienApbt]

im sure it wouldnt be bad to add some veggies...not that much though.

im curious about how much of the chicken is actually present myself... i dont want to barf myself. :roll:

[SKoth]

I've got some kids that will volunteer for quality control. Seriously though, sounds like a great idea, good luck!

[barbponys]

Hey Chilli,
It's cleaned, but the organs are present, and the neck. I do veggies, they don't get a lot but they do get them. I do seasonal veggies and they love greens. Fruit is a favorite snack.

I agree with the % of veggies in the pre made diets. There a couple that keep the % pretty low, Breeders Choice and Nature's Variety.

There's a lady up in your neck of the woods that does a decent raw, Amore?? She offers all meats as well as meat/veggie mixes. She's upped her meat content so they are better, still too much veggie for my liking though. I use the ostrich/emu as a rotation diet with the beef I feed the pug. He does well with it. He's also a bit rotund so the veggies are good for him, I don't give it to the pits cuz they don't need that much vegetable.

Damien,
Be careful with the "organic" foods. The grains, veggies and fruits are easy, the meats??? If they list any meal, it's not organic, and if they just list fresh meat, there's not a lot in it. It's VERY expensive: 16 1/2# wholesale cost is $32.50 for one brand. Retails for, I believe, $45. There's been a couple of foods that have been presented to us that claim organics and they aren't. Just a word of warning.

[mnp13]

the only 'problem' I see here is how will you package it? Frozen sounds best, if you do the 'tubes' then you have to either pasturize or steralize the food - which defeates the purpose of raw.

Michelle

[damienApbt]

packaging...definitely be frozen

organic meats...we get organic meat through the restaurant any way. we'd just use the same people.

prices... if i have my own store by the point of us making our own food than i could take out the middle man and set my own prices.

hey i know its not a huge deal. i dont plan on selling it nationwide. i only plan on selling it out of my store.

theres still all that legal crap to sludge through too.