Chippin is changing the way we feed our dogs. The company is joining in a mission to fight against an invasive fish species called silver carp through its daily dog food offering.
It's been more than 7 years since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced it would take decades and billions of dollars to defend the Great Lakes from the pending onslaught of silver carp.
Silver carp also called Asian carp are known for leaping out of the water at the sound of boat motors, which has resulted in injuries to boaters.
According to a recent report, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers needs billions of dollars for system upgrades and augmentation in order to construct electric barriers that can deter silver carp from invasion.
The truth is that even though nearly $1 billion has already been spent by state and the federal government in an attempt to defend the Great Lakes, the population of the ravenous fish breed which was first brought from Asia to the states in the 1970s to combat algae growth has continued to grow.
It's the overpopulation of silver carp that spurs Chippin to join in the fight. The sustainable dog food start-up which was founded in 2019 as a way for pet owners to help “chip-in” in the fight against climate change is now introducing a line of kibble-alternative made from silver carp, which it says has similar nutritional benefits to salmon protein in that it is high in omega-3s while lacking toxins like mercury.
The company says it is currently the only private sector solution for dealing with excess of the invasive species.
The co-founder and CEO of Chippin, Haley Russell said: “Up to this point, there has not been domestic demand for silver carp. We set up a new model partnering directly with a fishery out in Kentucky, whereby all of the fish we buy can be traced down to the exact fisherman that caught it that day.”
Before coming up with the idea that brought Chippin to life, Russell who was raised in a vegetarian household has always asked why their family dog was fed with meat products in the form of kibble made from salmon, chicken or beef. It turns out, those were simply the only options on the market then for feeding all types of dogs.
While at the University of Pennsylvania for her program, she researched alternate proteins for dogs that were less harmful to the environment because they did not rely on overfished salmon or the high carbon-emitting livestock industry. This has led to the creation of alternate dog food made from cricket and algae-based protein and now the carp kibble.
Russell who is looking to clean up $37 billion U.S. pet food industry has said that, “from a business standpoint, this is an exciting opportunity because we know pet food is one of the products that people want to subscribe to get on a regular basis”. “We've gotten so many requests from people for daily food... There’s a really high customer lifetime value potential,” she added.
Since proteins remain one of the most resource-intensive part of any meal, including pet food, protein-alternatives like the ones produced by Chippin will continue to gain widespread acceptance just like the human version of it made by companies like Beyond Burger and Impossible Foods.
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