The History of Dog Food: How Our Dogs' Bowls Follow Our Plates

Before Dog Food: The Same Bowl

Ancient times to the 1850s

On our plates

Food came from the farm and the kitchen

Before factory food, families grew, preserved and cooked most of what they ate. Home canning got a boost in 1858 with John Landis Mason's glass jar.

Four years earlier, an American lightning-rod dealer named James Spratt had patented a way to seal food for storage. Other inventors, including Mason, built on ideas like his, according to the Hagley Museum.

In the dog bowl

Leftovers, barley and whey

Dogs ate what their people ate. The Roman farm writer Columella advised feeding farm dogs barley meal mixed with whey. On farms without pasture, he suggested bread soaked in lukewarm bean broth (De Re Rustica 7.12.10).

Centuries later, most dogs still ate table scraps or homemade mixes of leftovers (Canine and Feline Nutrition).

A shepherd's family says grace, with the sheepdog under the father's chair. Mezzotint by Edward Burton after Alexander George Fraser, 1851. Wellcome Collection, public domain.

Same bowl: dogs ate what people ate

"Nor be thy dogs last cared for; but alike / Swift Spartan hounds and fierce Molossian feed / On fattening whey."

Virgil, Georgics, Book III (Project Gutenberg translation)

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1860s-1900s: The First Dog Biscuit

1860-1910

On our plates

Brands arrive on the pantry shelf

Branded food was already on store shelves. In England, Huntley & Palmers, founded in 1822, packed its biscuits in metal tins (Huntley & Palmers history). In 1856, Gail Borden introduced Eagle Brand condensed milk in the US (Eagle Brand).

Henry J. Heinz began packing foods in Pennsylvania in 1869 (Heinz history). By 1883 his family's company had trademarked its "Keystone" pickles and catsup (Library of Congress).

In 1898 a merger formed the National Biscuit Company, which trademarked Uneeda biscuits that December (Library of Congress).

Heinz “Our Commissary” promotional card, 1900. Wellcome Collection, public domain.

In the dog bowl

Spratt's "Meat Fibrine Dog Cakes"

James Spratt, an American lightning-rod dealer from Cincinnati, saw dogs on English docks eating sailors' hardtack. Around 1860 he launched baked dog cakes for the sporting dogs of English country gentlemen (Hagley Museum).

A period trade card advertised "meat fibrine vegetable dog cakes with beetroot" (Wellcome Collection). A 2021 lab analysis of a surviving cake found wheat and oat flour, bone fragments and very little fat (Fraser-Miller et al., Polar Record).

Spratt's registered a US trademark in 1876 (Library of Congress). American dog bakers followed, including "Maltoid Milk-Bone" biscuits by 1909 (Library of Congress).

Spratt's trade card, about 1900-1909. Wellcome Collection, public domain.

Dog food followed quickly, but only for wealthy owners

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1900s-1940s: Cans, Grocery Shelves and War

1900-1949

On our plates

Canned soup and the first food safety law

Campbell's introduced condensed canned soup in 1897 (Condensed soup history). On June 30, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt signed both the Food and Drugs Act and the Meat Inspection Act (FDA; Meat Inspection Act history).

Campbell's Tomato Soup poster, 1920s. Library of Congress, no known restrictions on publication.

Home economics began as a reform movement to make cooking more scientific (Elias, Stir It Up). In January 1942, the US began wartime rationing (National Park Service).

Office of War Information poster, 1942. Library of Congress, public domain.

In the dog bowl

Canned horsemeat, then a grocery store debut

In 1922, the Chappel brothers of Rockford, Illinois, introduced Ken-L Ration, the first canned dog food in the US, made from horsemeat (Petfood Industry).

Dog food was sold only in feed stores until Nabisco bought the Milk-Bone maker in 1931. Grocers at first thought it unsanitary to shelve dog food next to people food (Canine and Feline Nutrition).

By 1941 canned food held about 90% of the dog food market (Petfood Industry). After March 31, 1942, makers could no longer use tin for nonmilitary goods, and several switched to dehydrated dog food sold in cardboard boxes (National Park Service).

Canned food reached dogs about 25 years later

"Canned dog food was not seen as a good use of tin."

National Park Service, on World War II rationing (source)

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1950s-1960s: The Convenience Kitchen and the Birth of Kibble

1950-1969

On our plates

Dinner comes in a box

General Mills launched its first Betty Crocker cake mix in 1947 (MNopedia). Swanson's TV dinner was conceived in late 1953, and in 1954, its first full year, Swanson sold 10 million trays (Smithsonian Magazine).

Breakfast changed too. In 1950, Ralston Purina started using a cooking extruder, a machine that cooks and puffs dough under heat and pressure, to make Chex cereal (Petfood Industry).

A shopper in a supermarket aisle, 1957. Photo by Thomas J. O'Halloran, U.S. News & World Report collection, Library of Congress.

In the dog bowl

Puffed, crunchy kibble

Purina's pet food team borrowed the Chex extruder and experimented with it for three years (Petfood Industry). The extruded Dog Chow went national in 1957.

It won 14.8% of the dog food market by the end of that year and led the market by August 1958 (International Directory of Company Histories). Purina had sold dog food since the 1920s, starting with Dog Chow Checkers (Purina).

In 1961 General Foods added Gaines-Burgers, soft patties shaped like hamburgers (Gaines-Burgers history).

A 1955 Dow Chemical trade ad selling a protein supplement to dog food makers. Courtesy of Science History Institute, public domain.

From cereal extruder to kibble: 7 years

"But during the postwar era, time became an obsession of the food industry and eventually of American homemakers as a manufactured sense of panic began to pervade even day-to-day cooking."

Laura Shapiro, Something from the Oven (2004) (excerpt via NHPR)

"Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night - she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question - 'Is this all?'"

Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (1963) (excerpt)

The thread underneath: women's paid work, 1900-2023

The share of women in the labor force nearly tripled over the century. Convenience food, for people and dogs, grew alongside it.

Lighter bars (1900-1940) come from census data compiled by economist Claudia Goldin. Darker bars (1950 on) come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The two sources measure slightly differently.

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1970s-1980s: Nutrition Science and the First Plant-Based Bowls

1970-1989

On our plates

Eating for health, and for the planet

Frances Moore Lappé's Diet for a Small Planet came out in 1971 and went on to sell millions of copies (Retro Report). It linked eating plants to feeding the world.

In 1977 a Senate committee urged Americans to cut fat from about 40% to about 30% of calories (Dietary Goals for the United States). The first federal Dietary Guidelines followed in February 1980 (DietaryGuidelines.gov).

Shoppers at Kennedy's health foods store in Falls Church, Virginia, 1975. Photo by Thomas J. O'Halloran, U.S. News & World Report collection, Library of Congress.

In the dog bowl

Science-based formulas and a vegetarian first

Veterinarian Mark Morris first sold a kidney diet for dogs in 1948, and Hill's Science Diet followed in 1968 (AVMA; Hill's). The National Research Council revised its dog nutrient requirements in 1974 and again in 1985 (AAFCO).

The UK's first commercially marketed vegetarian dog food went on sale in 1980 (Sustainable Pet Food Association). AAFCO, the group that sets model US feed rules, published its dog nutrient profiles in 1992 (AAFCO).

Plant-based eating reached dog food about 9 years later

"It was so exciting, because the world of variety and texture and color and taste is all in the plant world."

Frances Moore Lappé, author of Diet for a Small Planet (Retro Report interview)

"Modern technology enabled the American housewife of 1950 to produce singlehandedly what her counterpart of 1850 needed a staff of three or four to produce: a middle-class standard of health and cleanliness for herself, her spouse, and her children."

Ruth Schwartz Cowan, More Work for Mother (1983) (quoted in the Christian Science Monitor)

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1990s-2000s: Raw Feeding, Natural Food and a Wake-Up Call

1990-2009

On our plates

Low-carb, paleo and organic

Loren Cordain's The Paleo Diet was published in 2002 (Cordain). Low-carb eating peaked in early 2004, when 9% of American adults said they were on a low-carb diet (NBC News).

National organic standards and the USDA Organic seal took effect in October 2002 (Congressional Research Service). Food writer Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma followed in 2006.

Certified organic produce at a farmers market in Santa Fe. USDA photo by Bob Nichols, CC BY 2.0.

In the dog bowl

Raw food, then the 2007 recall

Australian veterinarian Ian Billinghurst published Give Your Dog a Bone in 1993, launching the raw feeding movement known as BARF (Petfood Industry).

In March 2007, a recall of melamine-contaminated pet food grew to more than 5,300 products (2007 pet food recalls). The FDA received about 8,500 reports of pet deaths and confirmed 14.

Among owners who changed what they bought, 62% switched brands and 28% made food at home (Mintel via Petfood Industry).

Dogs went first: raw feeding beat the paleo boom by about 9 years

A book called The Stone Age Diet came out in 1975, before both of these (Paleolithic diet history). Even so, raw feeding for dogs went mainstream before the human paleo wave of the 2000s.

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2010s: Grain-Free, Fresh Delivery and Human-Grade

2010-2019

On our plates

Gluten-free, real food and meal kits

Food writer Michael Pollan summed up his 2008 book In Defense of Food in seven words: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." (In Defense of Food) In 2009 Brazilian researcher Carlos Monteiro proposed sorting foods by how processed they are (NUPENS).

By 2015, 21% of Americans said they actively included gluten-free foods in their diet (Gallup). HelloFresh launched in 2011 (HelloFresh) and Blue Apron in 2012 (Blue Apron).

A meal kit unpacked at home, 2016. Photo by Robert Nelson, CC BY 2.0.

In the dog bowl

Grain-free, then fresh food at the door

Grain-free sales in pet stores nearly doubled from $942 million in 2011 to $1.8 billion in 2013 (Petfood Industry). By 2015 grain-free was 34% of pet store food sales (GfK).

In 2018 the FDA began looking into reports of heart disease in dogs eating diets heavy in peas, lentils and potatoes. Its last update, in 2022, said case reports alone cannot establish cause (FDA).

The Farmer's Dog launched fresh dog food delivery in 2014, two years after Blue Apron (BK Reader). In 2016 AAFCO moved to define "human-grade" pet food claims (Petfood Industry).

Meal kits reached dogs 2 to 3 years later

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2020s: Less Processing and More Plants

2016 to today

On our plates

Plant-based burgers and the processed-food debate

The Beyond Burger launched in May 2016 (Beyond Meat). The Impossible Burger debuted that July (Impossible Foods).

In a 2019 NIH study, people ate about 500 more calories a day on an ultra-processed diet than on an unprocessed one (NIH). In April 2020, 54% of Americans said they were cooking more (The Shelby Report).

Beyond Burgers in a grocery store meat case, 2019. Photo by UBC Media Relations, CC BY 2.0.

In the dog bowl

New proteins and the processing question

Family-owned v-dog had sold plant-based kibble since 2005 (Petfood Industry). Venture money arrived in 2018, when Wild Earth raised seed funding to develop koji-based dog treats and dry food (Petfood Industry). Its kibble followed in 2019 (VegNews). In 2021 AAFCO tentatively approved black soldier fly larvae for adult dog food (Pet Food Processing).

Fresh pet food grew 30% in 2023, compared with 13% for pet food overall (Marketplace). In March 2026, researchers called for a way to classify pet food by how processed it is (Tanprasertsuk et al., Frontiers).

A dog checks out a bowl of Petaluma's Whole Food Mixer.

Plant-based burgers to venture-backed plant-based kibble: 3 years

"We have to be mindful that it takes more time and more money to prepare less-processed foods."

Kevin Hall, NIH researcher, 2019 (NIH)

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What Comes Next: Research That Could Move Faster for Dogs

In human nutrition, the evidence linking plant-rich diets to better health has been building for decades. Harvard researchers followed more than 120,000 adults for over 20 years. Those who ate more red meat, especially processed meat, had a higher risk of dying during the study (Pan et al., 2012).

The same study found that swapping one daily serving of red meat for fish, poultry, nuts, beans, low-fat dairy or whole grains was linked to a 7% to 19% lower risk. Studies like this show links but cannot prove cause and effect.

Among Seventh-day Adventists in the US and Canada, a group studied for its long lives, vegetarians had a 12% lower risk of death over about six years (Orlich et al., 2013). In 2025, the EAT-Lancet Commission estimated that a plant-rich, flexitarian diet could prevent about 15 million deaths a year (Rockström, Thilsted, Willett et al.).

Evidence has changed our plates slowly

Much of that research is decades old, and the timeline above shows how often convenience wins anyway. Kevin Hall, the NIH researcher who led the 2019 study on ultra-processed food, noted that "it takes more time and more money to prepare less-processed foods" (NIH). That trade-off shows up again and again in the timeline above.

Canine nutrition could move much faster from research to the bowl. We think many of the things that make healthy eating hard for people, like culture, habits and taste preferences, play a smaller role in what dogs eat. We choose every meal our dogs eat. In one brand-run survey, 24% of owners said their pets always eat healthier than they do, and 56% said sometimes (Petfood Industry).

What dog research still needs to answer

The dog evidence is younger. A 2023 review of 16 studies of dogs and cats found limited evidence of harm from vegan diets. It rated most of that evidence low or very low certainty and noted nutrient gaps in some cats (Domínguez-Oliva et al.). In a year-long study, 15 healthy adult dogs kept normal bloodwork on a commercial plant-based diet (Linde et al., 2024). No study has yet measured lifespan.

Cooking with dry heat creates compounds called advanced glycation end-products, or AGEs. In human food, animal-derived foods high in fat and protein were generally the richest in AGEs. Vegetables, fruits and whole grains had relatively few, even after cooking (Uribarri et al., 2010).

Researchers have measured AGEs in canned, extruded and other dog foods (Bridglalsingh et al., 2024). We found no study comparing AGEs in plant-based and meat-based dog foods. As of 2018, whether Maillard reaction products in food, a group that includes AGEs, affect pets' long-term health "has, hitherto, not been studied" (Teodorowicz et al., 2018).

Fiber is another open question. In dogs, fermentable fiber raises levels of short-chain fatty acids, which gut bacteria produce and which help fuel the colon (Bosch et al., 2009). Whether that helps dogs stay lean and healthy over a lifetime is still unknown.

Petaluma's View: Where Dog Food Goes Next

This section is our point of view. We would love to see long-term studies in dogs like the ones we have in human nutrition. Until then, here is where we think things are headed.

1. The gap keeps shrinking

When people see the benefits of a food, whether from research or from how they feel, we don't think it will take long before they offer it to their dogs too. Think of a parent asking a child to eat their broccoli. We expect pet parents to bring that same energy to their dogs' meals, and to get curious about how foods they try at the dinner table might help their pets.

Fermented foods are a good example of what we might see next. A 2021 Stanford study found that adults who ate more fermented foods, like kimchi and kefir, for 10 weeks had more diverse gut bacteria and lower levels of inflammatory proteins (Wastyk et al., Cell). As more people make these foods part of their routine, we expect they'll start asking whether their dogs could benefit too.

Insect protein shows the reverse. Insects need significantly less land and water than cattle and emit fewer greenhouse gases, according to a 2013 UN Food and Agriculture Organization report (FAO, via The Poultry Site). Purina launched insect-based pet food in Switzerland in November 2020 (Sunday Times), and AAFCO tentatively approved dried black soldier fly larvae for adult dog food in the US in 2021 (Pet Food Processing). From what we have seen, it hasn't taken off the way some hoped. Our hypothesis is that insects' near-absence from Western diets will keep limiting them in dog food too.

2. More questions about ingredients

We think people will keep asking harder questions about what's in their food and their dogs' food. After the 2007 pet food recall, one Mintel analyst said "buyers are looking more closely at labels" (Veterinary Practice News). We expect people to want to know more about where ingredients come from and how food is made. We also think more people will look to smaller brands that are open about how they work.

3. Protein and fiber, not protein versus fiber

Protein has been the nutrient everyone talks about, and fiber is catching up. In 2025, 71% of Americans said they were trying to consume protein (IFIC via Prepared Foods). The share trying to consume fiber jumped from 54% to 64% in one year (IFIC via Nutritional Outlook). We expect dog food to follow, and we think plant proteins have a strong case here, since foods like peas and chickpeas bring fiber along with their protein.

4. GLP-1s could change how we feed our dogs

GLP-1 drugs are already changing how people eat. By mid-2024, more than 16% of US households had at least one person taking one. Those households cut their grocery spending by 5.3% within six months, and savory snack spending fell about 10% (Cornell University). We think that shift will reach our dogs too. That could look like fewer treats and table scraps, and more attention to nutrient density, meaning more nutrition in every calorie.

We will keep following the research and sharing what we learn. For a closer look at feeding for a longer life, see Can Diet Help Your Dog Live Longer? and How Long Do Dogs Live? If you're sorting out the labels, start with vegan vs. vegetarian dog food.