Hello, Anthony Chadwick from the webinar vet, welcoming you to another episode of Vet Chats. I'm really excited today. I've got Hugo Waters on the line, who is the founder of Avar.
Gonna talk a little bit about more about that in a minute. Just a lovely day today, going out at the beach, picking up some rubbish as well, but this is why we want to talk so much about sustainability because. We have this gorgeous planet that we want to save and we can all do our bit.
But actually Hugo's doing something really amazing. Aardvark is an insect pet food for cats and dogs, and I just want to make a disclaimer in that I've liked the company so much. I've invested as well, and I'm on Hugo's advisory board.
And so without further ado, it's great to have you on. Thank you, Antony and thanks, thanks for the lovely introduction. Hugo, tell us a little bit about maybe your background, what made you start to think about setting up aardvark as a company?
Sure, so I, I don't actually have a background in pet food. I've always loved, loved pets growing up, but I went to university, I went to the University of Exeter and I studied English. I think when people who I'm doing AARC, they, I think they expect sort of biotech, biosciences, or something to do with the veterinary industry.
But my big passion before, before AAR was scriptwriting. I was very much into English. So I studied English literature at Exeter.
And it was during, during that time, I think, when this was Seeds for AArk first started to appear. Yeah, the in the inspiration for, for Ava very much started with my cat, Coco. Coco's been in my, my family for 15 years now.
Oh, she's a Burmese. I started to realise there was this sort of divide in my lifestyle. I was reducing my meat intake at the same time as I looked to feed Cocoa better and better food.
I was actually increasing her meat intake, and increasing the quality of the meat. There's been this, this change in the last 10 years where we've seen in the pet food industry increasing. Premium food.
And in many cases now, we're, we're feeding dogs and cats with actually human grade. This is sort of realisation I had. And then on top of that, there was also the realisation of the allergy rate in dogs and cats.
I was pretty shocked, actually. I've also got a dog, Hendo, named after Jordan Henderson. We we were looking into the sort of allergy rates in dogs.
And both, we sort of got unlucky because both my cats and dogs suffer from allergies. So we found out the, the allergy rate in dogs runs as high as about 34%. That's, that's in terms of beef.
And it's pretty high for chicken. And in cats, it's, it's not quite as high, but it's pretty high as well. So if you take a cat in terms of salmon, in terms of chicken, the allergy rates are fairly high.
So I realised there was this, there was this issue, central issue, and these two problems, those were sustainability. A allergies, and that's where insect protein came in. No, it's really fascinating.
I mean, obviously, before I ran webinar best. I did a lot on dermatology and food allergy is certainly a problem. I don't know whether I would place it as high as you've said, but certainly it's a problem that's out there, of course.
But what's your experience with palatability with Aardvark, cos obviously the company's been set up for about a year now. I know you've got quite a lot of clients. What's been your observations with palatability in dogs?
You know, but also particularly in cats, which, which can be very fastidious eaters, as, as you're probably aware. So what's been the sort of acceptance rate from, from cats and dogs for the aardvark diet? First, I would say there's a, there's a big difference almost between the customer and the consumer.
The consumer being the dog and the cat, and the, you know, the customer being the human. So one of the first hurdles you have is actually convincing cat owners that their, their dogs and cats will like insect protein. So that's a, that's an initial hurdle.
I think we're, we're very used to now in the pet food industry, seeing. Chicken casserole, say, is the name for a pet food. And people have come to associate dog and cat food very much with human food.
Even though dogs and cats are they're not biologically at all human. So there's this divide there, and I often also stress to people, if you take a cat, insect protein is far more biologically appropriate than, say, feeding beef or venison. I mean, I've never seen a cat take down a cow, maybe you have Antony, I'm, I'm yet to see that, that reason we can say that this is, and this is something which a lot of pet owners speak to us, they want to feed.
Which is appropriate biologically, for their pets. So that was, that was a something at the key start. I think, I think one thing which is, which is interesting is you've got such a range in terms of species.
If you, you know, if you're taking, if you're looking at a dog, particularly in terms of the breeds, and you take a Labrador, success rate is always going to be very, very high. If you're looking at usually the smaller dog breeds, it's more challenging. I would say our our pet food is very, very palatable.
If you're looking at it compared to other animal meat-based pet foods, I don't think there's a difference there. In terms of palatability. With cats, it's interesting because cats are so sensitive to changes of smell, environment.
We always encourage people when they switched to AARC, switch slowly. That's to have a transition period of 10 days, starting off with a 50% of the bowl AA. So that's pretty crucial, I'd say, because I think There are times where This can happen with any, any pet food, but times with cats, especially where you'll switch the food out and in one go, you'll switch it, so you'll go immediately from one brand to ours.
In those circumstances, I think there's often a, a danger because the cats can immediately smell something new, something unfamiliar. That's really interesting. I'm just listening to a very loud magpie outside the, outside the window, so I hope this isn't interfering with the recording, but we'll carry on.
And yeah, it's interesting, I suppose a lion might take down a cow, but, not a little pussycat or or I guess it depends how big you are. I think. Yeah, it depends how big the cat is it?
Or a tiger maybe. But, on the whole, you've found that it's been very palatable, but we need that kind of transition period, which I used to recommend to clients for any pet food, if they were going to change, it wasn't just a sudden one day, one thing, one day the next. So that seems really sensible.
Of course, this podcast is all about sustainability and. We're obviously keen, I've just come back from COP 26, we're looking at things like carbon, how do we reduce, you know, the carbon that we're pumping into the atmosphere. And, and just tell us a little bit about the insect that you're using here.
I believe it's called a black soldier fly. You're obviously bringing it in from, from Holland, hopefully without any problems due to Brexit, but tell us a little bit about some of the features that make this, this, insect such a remarkable insect. For starters, it's very, very high in protein.
It grows remarkably quickly. It's about 6000 times its body weight in two weeks, so. It really packs on the protein very, very quickly, and we feed it on we feed these insects on vegetable waste.
So, what you have is you're creating a circular system. You have these big, and I'm, it's almost a sort of a Blade Runner future, because you have these gigantic vertical farms, and you're farming them in these big vertical chambers. And one benefit as well as black soldier flies, they like to be together.
So when you look into. Animal farming in many cases. You see these awful images of hen in very, very tight.
Luckily with black soldier flies, they like to be in a very familiar environment. But even then, you're still looking at these long vertical chambers. And this means we use far less land area as well.
So we're using about 2% of the land area compared to cattle farming, and about 4% of the water use. So they're very, very efficient, very efficient creatures. And we're still learning, I mean, we're still learning about so much about them.
I think this is the sort of very, Very early days of research as we sort of go into it, we find out more and more. They've got antioxidant properties. That's the research which has recently come out, which is, I'd say fairly groundbreaking.
But these are, these are the early stages. I think we're gonna see more and more positive research into it. And the sustainability side is very much that they're using far less land area, far less water.
Mission profile is far lower. And then I really try to stress as well that we're gonna view sustainability from a sort of holistic perspective in terms of viewing it, not just emissions, but say looking at deforestation. An agriculture is one of the most significant drivers of deforestation.
So by using farms and farming animals, which use far less land area, far, far more efficient and also far more ethical. And obviously Holland leads the way in this. I know they have lots of rewilding areas in Holland.
I, I would guess, I think, you know, that things like obviously that beautiful circular economy, there is fruit and veg waste, unfortunately we waste food that we shouldn't do, so it's not being wasted because it's being used there to grow the insects. And, and quite often in these factories, of course they're using renewable energy as well, which, which also helps, doesn't it? Yeah, I mean Protex, the, the factory we've partnered with uses renewable energy.
They're attempting to do a complete circular. Circular system. And, and of course I presume in a sense we're not using really any medications on the flies to help them to grow like antibiotics or if they get sick, you know, there's always the, the worry of residues in in meat as well, isn't there, that means that that also is less efficient because you have to, you have to wait until you know, the, the cow's withdrawal period is finished or whatever before you can, you can use it.
Exactly. That we're not using antibiotics on the back side of your fly. And I think as you sort of stressed, this is a conversation which is gonna be had more and more.
I mean, increasingly it is, you sit in the media a lot now, antibiotic resistance and the, the concerns there. I think this is something, you know, a, a real benefit then like Soldier fly. Of course, one of the other things that concerns me and very much was mentioned at cop that, you know, we're going to start preventing deforestation is the use of soy in a lot of animal feeds, and, and often that soy is produced in places like Brazil by cutting down the rainforests, so you're not having to use any soy in the production of this food either, which presumably will, will.
Help in some way sort of slightly, you know, off point but to reduce deforestation as well in any any production of these proteins. Exactly, I mean, we, when we take the, we take the insect protein, we combine it with a range of other ingredients, and we've been lucky there because when we've looked into the other ingredients, we've chosen them on their carbon footprint and their health benefits. So we're not using, say, soya, we're not using ingredients where we know we're gonna have to fly it over.
It's gonna do a huge amount of air miles. We're going to UK producers and ingredients there, brilliant. And, and the food is, is then, although the black soldier flies come from Holland, the food is actually produced in the UK, is it?
Correct, yeah, it's produced all in the UK, so we, we partnered with the Holland facility. Protex is the company, and they're one of the leaders for Black soldier Fly Farming, and we partnered with them because of their high standards. But in terms of the rest of production, it's all in the UK and our fulfillment's in the UK as well.
Obviously, you know, a small cat, small dog per day feeding is often something we talk about. They still are quite expensive, this is a process that's still quite expensive to produce, you know, a 1 kilogramme of black soldier fly. Do you see that coming down as this food becomes a little bit more mainstream?
I mean, that's, that's the hope, and I, I definitely think it will. A lot of the investment into insect farming industry hasn't come, for pet food. The reason it's there is not trying to reduce the price of inset protein for pet food.
It's for aquaculture. Agriculture's quite inefficient still, in terms of the feed. So, and in terms of the environmental costs there.
So I think for insect protein to be price competitive with fish feed solutions, it's gonna have to come down quite considerably. I mean, at the moment, fly on a per tonne basis costs around €3000 to €35,000. I think for price competitive with fish feed, you're gonna need to bring that down to about €1000.
And that would still be more expensive than your sort of per metric tonne beef, chicken. And, and I suppose in some ways this is one of my other issues that within the agricultural system, some of agriculture is really held together because of the subsidies, so we've got to change the way that we subsidise, you know, dirty energy versus renewable energy and. You know, food that is has a higher carbon footprint compared with that which is, which is lower perhaps so we're encouraged to eat, you know, both as humans but also as pets, foods that have a have a lower carbon footprint.
Exactly, I mean, I think it's always gonna be quite an expensive process, at least say farming, farming in the UK, whether that be chicken, cow, or insects. I don't see that changing. Yeah, no, sure.
I, I mean, obviously it sounds like sustainability has been something that you're very passionate about and you're bringing into this whole process. Sometimes we see that, you know, there's still a, there's a *** in the armour, so talk to me a little bit about the packaging of aardvark as well, of the, of the pet food. Sure, so we've, we've developed a range of, paper bags for our, for our pet food, and we've got a, a plant-based liner inside as well.
I think one thing we've noticed increasingly is that you can try and be at the forefront of sustainable technology. You can try and bring out the most sustainable paper bags. And in many cases, I think the, if you take the UK for example, I think Europe's actually slightly better, but in many cases, we don't actually have the technology to process.
Recyclable bags, and we don't have the technology, we don't have industrial compostibility capabilities. So you, you quickly find yourself looking into different councils and finding that certain customers can recycle their bags and certain customers can't. I think this is a, this is a change that hopefully will take place.
Over the next 5 years, and it's a change which is very much needed, in terms of, I think there's a lot of products out there which are recyclable, which simply aren't being recycled. Yeah, full time and time again. And this is, this is not just a pet food problem.
This is a problem across so many industries in the UK. And I think it, I think it sometimes leads to a false sense of security, because I've definitely realised that there's a lot of products out there which, you know, I think, are being recycled where I've since realised, hang on. No, Redd's compostible, isn't that actually being compostable, you know, is that actually happening?
Most likely not. Yeah, and obviously people, individuals are, some are more committed than others, as are, as are councils as well, and I think again this is where. You know, when I, when I was at COP, the agreement, I think, is something, but it's probably slower and babier steps than we would have liked.
But this is somewhere where government can step in, in, you know, as they did with the, with the tax on the plastic bag that reduced the amount of plastic immensely, you know, over the next 12 months. And I think they have to put more emphasis on, on recycling and as you've said very much this circular economy that things do get reused rather than just thrown away after after one use. So I, I suppose, finally, you know, 3 years hence, is this gonna stay as a, as a fairly small niche product, or do you see that .
Insect pet foods will grow. What, what's the trajectory suggested by, you know, some of the early work? Do you see, insect cat food being a, a growing market over the next 3 to 5 years?
I mean, being the founder of Alvark, I would say this, but I do believe there's gonna be some significant, growth in the industry. I think we've got to look to actually human food and see, see how that responds. And I often say, pet food seems to be about 10 years behind human food.
If we look at the likes of Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, pioneers, plant-based, plant-based meat, it took about 10 years to get up to traction. I think that's often. Talk about Beyond Meat, you know, suddenly exploding, and that was 10 years in the making to get there.
Yeah, I think over the, you know, we've just, we were the, when we launched in May 2021, we were the first company in the UK to do internet dog and cat food. And I do see a real role for it, not just because I think if it was just sustainable. And maybe not, but because you've got sustainability combined with, it's a high protein source, it's hyperallergenic, it has all these other benefits, and I think we need to you can set protein as a superfood.
Brings real benefits which aren't just sustainable, it's got all these sustainability benefits for all these other ones. So I do, I do think we'll see significant change. And there's also the, I still think isn't talked about enough that cats obligate carnivals.
So, well, they can't very well, so they, yeah, carnivorous diet very well as a human going on a plant-based diet, but you can't put your cat on a plant-based diet. And of course it's supplemented or or there's taurine within the diet through the insects is that. Exactly, and we, we have the, the required Tory levels, that cats need, to both survive and thrive.
Brilliant. I know, to start the company, you obviously went out to investors, and as I said at the beginning, you know, I invested in the company and helping, you know, advise and so on. But I, I believe the Crowd Cub round was one of the most successful that Crowd Cube had ever seen.
I think we, yeah, we got, I would like to. Like to view it not as luck, but we, we did almost, you know, it really took off in a way we really didn't expect. So we, we set out to raise 50,000, from investors, and it's quite a strange experience going on Crowdkeep, because being pre-revenue, we didn't have an existing customer base.
So most companies which go on Crowdkeep to crowdfund, they're giving away a portion of their, their, their company, for money. They give away a portion of the shares. Now, most companies can go into their existing customer base and say, we're raising funds, we'd love to have you alongside us, .
With us we didn't, so it was very much a case of going on the crowd key platform. And seeing what the interest was like from the, the crowd is what they call it, and it went. It went very well in terms of we raised 300,000, so we, we overfunded by 600%, and we've now got just over 900 investors in the company, which we're actually a very, you know, very early stage startup, huge amount of investors.
And I think it's also proof of concept, isn't it, if you put a product out there, you know, on Crowd Cub or on any of the other crowdfunding platforms and you don't raise the money, that means that most people think it's not a great idea and will be unlikely to buy that product. So it's a great way to sort of vindicate, your approach, isn't it, that, you know, 900 people were prepared to put. Money in their pocket, you know, put their hand in their pocket and pull money out for you.
So, is, is that, are you looking to do other investments rounds in the future as well? Yeah, I mean that question's actually very well timed, cos we're about to do a fundraising round in the next, in the following few days. Probably by the time this podcast is, is out, we'll be funding on Crowdkeep.
So if you go on Crowdkeep, you'll be able to see us, we'll be there. What we're doing essentially at the moment is we've had our initial traction, and initial traction's been really, really strong. Just over 2000 new customers.
And we're now essentially raising funds to bring out new products, particularly wet food. So we're just selling dry food at the moment. So we're raising funds to bring out wet food variants and also expand the business into Europe.
So those are sort of two key aims and two key aims why we're fundraising. Yeah, there is the opportunity now, in the sort of coming days to, to own shares in our book. And it also has a sort of range of tax benefits and other benefits in terms of In terms of crowd I know it's interesting that several vets also invested along with me as well and we're hoping in the not too distant future to do a webinar with you to, to explain the product in a bit more detail, aren't we?
Yeah, I mean, that's, that's the hope, and I think it'll be great to actually really dive deep into science, because on the, say, the top of the Black soldier fight itself, there's so much to discuss, there's so much we can go into. And I think it's just such a, such a fascinating area, you know, it's something which we. You know, we, as a company, still exploring, in terms of there keeps being discoveries, in terms of what I said before, the antioxidant benefits, of Bor fibre, something which was only discovered relatively recently.
So I'm, there's, I think a lot of topics we can talk through. Hugo, that's brilliant. I know there's been a lot of interest within the veterinary profession, even on this podcast we've talked about insect pet food, so it seemed only appropriate that we get you in as the founder of Aardvark to tell us a little bit more about it.
I'm fascinated by the company, as you know, I got involved and I wish you all the luck for, for the next, years ahead that we can see this really helping with dog and cat health, but also helping with the health of the planet as well. So thanks for all you do in that area. Perfect, thanks Anthony, yeah, I'm very much looking forward to the webinar.
Should be, should be exciting. That's great, Hugo, take care and looking forward to listening, to getting, your feedback everyone and to having you on another podcast soon. Thanks very much for all this and thanks Hugo.
