Open Farm Kind Earth
Continuing Open Farm’s commitment to producing sustainable, earth friendly products, Kind Earth looks to cut the carbon footprint of kibble. Their insect-based kibble has been in the works for years with Open Farm partnering with animal nutritionists and vets to provide the best in nutrition while continuing their mission. Open Farm has always sourced meat according to strict welfare and sustainability standards. Kind Earth is a new approach to the same method without incorporating conventional sources of meat.
Their insect-based kibble sources Black Soldier Fly Larvae with the highest animal welfare standards. While there is no functional welfare certification for Black Soldier Fly Larvae, Open Farm consulted with International Platform of Insects for Food and Feed to ensure that their sourcing meets their high standards. This means that “the environment they’re raised in enables them to express natural behaviors, be free from hunger and thirst, discomfort, pain, injury, disease, fear and distress.” While not a conventional source of animal protein, they’re still animals that deserve to be treated with dignity and respect as we would with any other animal.
American Chemical Society
The recipes key focus was also on sustainability in mind and this ingredient choice plays perfectly into that. Open Farm measures the carbon footprint of all their ingredients and recipes, processsing, waste, and logistics to get the best idea of their environmental impacts. This new recipe is their lowest carbon footprint kibble! Although insects have been used for food the world over as a low impact, sustainable method since time immemorial, general populations don’t view insects as food favorably (2). Their application as pet food is a no brainer. Insect proteins such as mealworms use 91% less land, 79% less water, and a decrease of 84% global warming potential than beef (1). That isn’t even considering the amount of water and land that cattle feed needs with over 75% of US cropland (3) and 42% of our irrigation (4) just used for livestock feed.
Feeding insects to our pets may not be considered conventional to our western sensibilities, but it is used throughout the world. Even Open Farm’s commitment of only sourcing animal welfare certified meat was considered unconventional when they first started too. Their commitment to their standards results in one of the highest quality pet foods on the market with the strictest animal welfare standards in the petfood industry to date. Give Kind Earth a whirl as a properly sustainable alternative to kibble.
(1) Bugs and the future of meat - American Chemical Society
(3) Without animals, US farmers would reduce feed crop production - NIH
