An Austin company is taking food scraps from restaurants and turning them into nutritious dog food.
The Conscious Pet launched earlier this year, under the leadership of serial entrepreneur Mason Arnold, with the goal of making up-cycled dog food mainstream. It adds to Austin's range of unique pet companies, from Nulo Inc., a past Inc. 5000 member that makes nutrient-rich dog food, to Maev Inc., which specializes in what it calls "human-grade" raw dog food. There's even Homescape Pets, which makes pet supplements with cannabidiol.
The idea for The Conscious Pet came from a podcast. On an episode of their Mostly Green Life series, Arnold and his wife, Jessica Arnold, hosted Break It Down, a compost company based out of East Austin. A guest showed the Arnolds how to isolate particular ingredients and up-cycle them — one of those outcomes looked like dog food. The Arnolds began researching the best way to turn compost into nutritious dog food and combined the issues of food waste and “poor nutrition” in dog food.
Mason Arnold used his background in chemical engineering to learn about the nutrients dogs require and researched methods of cooking dog food such as air drying, gentle cooking and dehydration. He combined pieces from those processes to make a shelf-stable product that maintains nutrients.
In January, the Arnolds, Melanie MacFarlane and Jeff Paine co-founded the business, under the name JM Squared PBC. Mason Arnold is the CEO (the company refers to him as chief "dogxecutive" officer), Jessica Arnold is the vice “pawsident” of sales and marketing and MacFarlane and Paine are the "co-dogperating" officers. MacFarlane and Paine are co-owners of Break It Down, which has partnered with The Conscious Pet.
Break It Down composts foods from more than 600 restaurants across the city, including Odd Duck, Shake Shack, Home Slice Pizza, JuiceLand and Kerbey Lane Cafe. Austin's universal recycling ordinance, which took effect in 2018, requires restaurants to compost food scraps or give them away.
The Conscious Pet is under a nondisclosure agreement and cannot mention which restaurants’ scraps get reused in its dog food. Mason Arnold declined to disclose the cost of the food waste, citing the NDA, and said different restaurants have different arrangements.
This isn’t Arnold’s first time in the consumer packaged goods world. He started Cece’s Veggie Co., which ranked No. 3 on the 2019 Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing companies. The company sold its East Austin factory in November 2020 to San Antonio-based food packager Fresh Texas, and Arnold stepped down as chief executive in 2021, although he remains on the board. It did not take long for him to get another CPG itch.
“Most of my career up to this point has been helping people eat healthier,” Arnold said. “With this one, we're going to help pets eat healthier.”
The Conscious Pet expects to ship its first orders by the end of June. The company raised $150,000 through WeFunder under a "friends invest first initiative," with public investment opening May 25. Execs have set a goal of raising $350,000, hoping to attract investments from local dog owners.
The co-founders have invested between $50,000 and $100,000 in personal funds to cover the research and development phase and set up, Arnold said.
About 500,000 pounds of food waste will be up-cycled annually once the company launches, Arnold calculated. The Conscious Pet has access to one of Break It Down’s buildings to make the food. The company uses renewable energy and compostable packaging. It was also set up as a public benefit corporation, a designation that indicates a business will try to generate societal benefits, not just shareholder profits.
There will be more job opportunities that arise as the company finds its footing, but for now the four co-founders are the only employees. Arnold anticipates employing between 60 to 80 people to take care of manufacturing and delivery.
Eventually, Arnold hopes to establish continuous operations, where waste goes in the front and dog food comes out the back. Until then, the company will make 1,000-pound batches. After the dog food is made, it should be in people’s homes within a week or two.
“[Several restaurants] make particular dishes in such high quantity that we have a massive amount of supply,” he said. “We could have thousands of customers in the Austin area, and we would still be able to maintain that every single batch is exactly the same.”
The Conscious Pet has already begun accepting pre-orders online and will be directly selling to the consumer for the foreseeable future. The company is open to sell through other retailers, preferring local.
The company will strictly launch in Austin, but if it expands outside of the city, it may consider licensing its process or having new locations set up separately, Arnold said.
