Why are animal treats labeled as tasting like human food, yet taste nothing like it to humans?
In: 10
Marketing
You’re selling the product to humans, who want something their pet will like, but they don’t taste things like the pet does, so you’re better off telling them some human equivalent thing.
What animal treats are labeled that way? That is as tasting as human food and what that taste is. I have not seen that.
If you look at for example dog treat taste can be mentioned as in what they are made of but nothing state that is taste like human food.
The treats are made to get humans to associate with human food or more exactly ingredients. That is because it is humans that select and purchase them, the animals do you like to get humans to think that sound tasty.
I’ve never seen a label that states “tastes like human food” Care to elaborate?
That said, they do try to make things sound yummy, obviously. A dog will eat a rotten raccoon on the side of the road, but I can only assume “tastes like rotten raccoon” on the label wouldn’t sell well.
Companies are willing to bet that if they put “tastes like human food” on the label, not enough people will try it for themselves to realize it’s a crock of shit
(/s, but only partially)
Simple, people tend to buy food they recognize, especially if it is to feed their pets. Example would be fake bacon for dogs, which has a million variations and is much more marketable than “random meat scraps shaped in a bone”
Two reasons.
First is that humans buy the food, people love their pets so they want to feed them appetising food, so they make the food sound appetising to humans, some companies go over the top with this, I saw chicken florentine cat food, which is ridiculous.
Second is that Meat isn’t “human food” as such, its eaten by a lot of species. Usually the flavour name comes from the main protein type, then they flavour it with salt, corn ect to match what pets responded best too in feeding trials, this is why salmon cat biscuits might be salty like salmon but taste nothing like the salmon we buy.
I mean, I started an organic 100% salmon dog treats business years ago, and sold them at farmers markets. More than a couple times people took one and ate it, and were surprised to find out it does taste like salmon… but also they were extremely gritty, because they were made from ground up discarded salmon heads, tails, and spines, with the scales and all, basically a fishery waste product.
I didn’t come up with this idea either, its generally how all dog food companies function. You may be surprised to find out most dog food is made from food waste that was not suitable for human consumption. When it comes down to it, food labeled as chicken may have a certain percentage of chicken neck or offal in it, as low as 5 to 10%, and the rest could be grain filler. “Dog food factories” usually pop up right next to human food processing plants, will remove their “garbage” for free, and turn it into dog food. It only needs meet a minimum quantity of an ingredient to be able to claim that ingredient is in the product.
The more you know! 🌟
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