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At The Simple Food Project, we want to be as real with you as possible. We want you to have zero doubts about the quality of our ingredients, the safety of our manufacturing, and the passion that fuels our mission.
Menu
At The Simple Food Project, we want to be as real with you as possible. We want you to have zero doubts about the quality of our ingredients, the safety of our manufacturing, and the passion that fuels our mission.
About the Project
In order to be certified human grade, a company has to manufacture at least one human product from their facility. And we don’t. So we are not at liberty to throw around the human-grade claim on all our packaging.
Everything we put in our products, however, is human-grade. But because we choose not to produce anything intended for human consumption, we technically can’t be certified “human grade” (even though we treat our pet food as we would our own food). Sure, we could add a human product to our repertoire, but we don’t want to divert any of our focus, labor, or materials away from our passion to feed pets good food. And we didn’t feel like adding a random human product to our animal know-how just so we could have those special words in our marketing.
We know we’re operating at a facility fit for humans with ingredients fit for humans, and that’s all that matters to us.
Yes, 100% grain free! We’re big believers in feeding a species-appropriate diet, so when formulating our recipes, we wanted to follow the guidelines of a carnivore’s food pyramid. (You can check out our ingredient breakdown for each of recipes on our homepage)
Yes. And they actually are. You’ve probably seen a lot of foods that say they are limited ingredient, but still have that paragraph of ingredients on the back of the bag.
But when we say limited ingredient, we actually mean it. That’s why we put a pile of ALL our ingredients on the FRONT of the bag. We’re not trying to hide anything or claim that some ingredients are more important than others. Everything we put in our food has a purpose for nourishing our dogs.
There are fourteen ingredients in each of our recipes (whether you’re looking at the front of the box, or the back of the box).
Ah, our favorite question! We want to distance ourself from kibble as much as possible.
Kibble does have one thing going for it: it’s convenient. That’s the only lesson we took from it. And then we ran as far away as possible.
Kibble is very high in carbs and sugars (more than 50% of it is carbs & sugars), it has hardly any nutritional content (the amount that it does have comes from synthetic vitamins and minerals), it rarely contains quality ingredients, and there’s really no telling what’s actually in your bag of kibble. These are all things that terrify us as pet parents.
SO, in an effort to provide an alternative that is just as convenient, we opted for a food that is low-carb & low-sugar, high in animal-based proteins, full of natural, whole-food vitamins and minerals, made with human grade ingredients and advertised with full honesty and transparency.
Our facility is located in a town called Oconomowoc (it’s not as hard to say as it looks), which is in southeastern Wisconsin. All the ingredients have to pass our inspection before coming through our doors, we do all the manufacturing and packaging under our own roof, and then we send out the finished product right to your door.
Our “Crafted with Love in Small Batches” tagline refers to our production process. We produce our food in smaller quantities because it gives us far more control over maintaining ingredient freshness and proper safety. It’s much easier to keep a close eye on a smaller batch size and ensure that everything meets our high standards for quality.
Cooling, neutral and warming foods are all elements of food energetics. The idea behind it all is maintaining temperature balance within the body by consuming a balanced diet of both warming and cooling foods.
For example, dogs who tend to run a little hot, opt to sleep on the tile floor, or have issues with nervousness generally benefit from higher amounts of cooling and neutral foods in their diets.
It depends on what you define ‘raw’ as. Are our foods unprocessed and completely in their original state? No. Those little nuggets of deliciousness go through a couple of different manufacturing processes before they are packaged and delivered to your door.
But, is the freeze-dried portion of our food uncooked? Yes, and we consider it freeze-dried raw. All the foods are raw when we pop them in the freeze-dryer, and all the freeze-dryer does is suck the moisture out.
All three recipes are appropriate for puppies as long as you add the Simple Food Project’s Puppy Balancer, which is simply vitamins and minerals from whole foods.
Please paw at us for more details!
About the Ingredients
All of our ingredients are US-sourced, but we made one special exception for Norway to guarantee the absolute highest-quality food. Most of it comes from our neighbors in the Midwest, but we do practice seasonally sustainable sourcing.
The Simple Food Project believes in nourishing pets with real, whole foods. We only use fresh, raw foods in our recipes and that won’t ever change. What does change, is the size of the fruits and vegetables because as we know, produce is never identical. Apples vary in color and size, green beans can be skinny, thick, long or stout.
We source from all over the US, sometimes rotating because of seasonality, so we can be certain we’re getting the highest-quality produce. That also means different growing climates – temperatures, soil, precipitation, wind, sun; these factors shape that produce and that’s the beauty of fresh, raw food.
Think of your own experience in the kitchen. You dice and chop ingredients for say, guacamole. The end-product is of course delicious (assuming you know your way around picking ripe avocados), but it will never look or taste exactly like the last batch of guacamole you made. And that’s okay! What’s important is the quality ingredients you used (in the proper proportions) to make a fresh batch of guac.
If you apply the same thought to Simple Food, the variance in each batch really just reinforces the fact that we’re using real, whole foods.
Take for instance, the apples used in our Duck & Trout Recipe. Some pieces will get larger during the freeze-drying process and some smaller. Why? Are we slacking? Nope. It all depends on the sugar content of each apple. The bigger pieces have a higher sugar content. That’s all. Or our green beans, why do they vary? It’s dependent on each green bean’s fiber content. Some green beans will have a slightly more fiber and thus will appear larger. Others will have slightly less fiber and thus will appear smaller. It simply means that this batch may look a little different from the last one, which is direct evidence to the real, whole food ingredients that we use!
Our salmon is wild-caught Alaskan Salmon that comes from, well, Alaska. Salmon from the Northwest can carry the parasite Nanophyetus salmincola that in turn may be infected with Neorickettsia helminthoeca. Since consuming fish infected with Neorickettsiais can be fatal to dogs, all salmon used in our facility is manufactured in accordance to the FDA guidelines for freezing fish to kill parasites.
On its journey from Alaska to our facility in Wisconsin, it is kept frozen. When the salmon reaches our facility, it is immediately put in a freezer until it is ready to be processed. During processing, all of our product goes through an IQF quick-freeze chamber which brings the temperature of the product down to -60 degrees Fahrenheit. After it goes through the quick-freeze chamber, it is ready to go into the freeze drier.
Our driers create a vacuum which brings the product to -65 degrees Fahrenheit. We have validated our freeze-dried pasteurization step and there is a 5 to 6 log reduction in harmful bacteria. The FDA states that any pasteurization step that kills bacteria is also effective for killing parasites, including the rickettsial organism, Neorickettsia.
Our trout goes through the same process.
Absolutely! The trout we use are the same caught for your dinner table.
The trout come with HACCP-certification (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point Program). And that long checklist includes testing for heavy metals and other contaminants.
We’ve always practiced seasonally sustainable sourcing, meaning we source locally as much as possible, and we were sourcing organic produce when we could. Recently though, we’ve done a bit of foraging and found suppliers to partner with so we could start offering organic produce year-round! It’s a small change but a BIG step forward because, as always, our goal is to provide our pets the highest-quality foods possible.
About Purchasing
Each of our recipes is a little different, and the amount of days a single box will last you varies greatly based on the size of your dog. On each recipe page, you’ll find a chart that tells you approximately how long each box will last per dog weight.
We are not your typical dog food. You will always be able to get kibble cheaper than our food, and there’s a reason for that. Simple Food Project is chock-full of real, whole ingredients like USDA-inspected meats and grocery grade produce that are formulated to meet the needs of dogs without having to add a bunch of synthetic vitamins and minerals.
Even though our price tag is higher than kibble’s, the value of our food is far higher than any other commercial food you’ll find on the market.
We sure do! We partner with small retailers across the country. Head to our Store Locator to find a store near you.
Don’t see your local store? Tell them about The Project!
Head over to our Recipes page to choose a recipe. You can make a one-time purchase, or sign up for an autoship schedule (which can be canceled anytime!).
We totally understand picky dogs. And it can be a little scary to commit to a brand new food when you have a dog that turns its nose up to just about everything.
For these dogs, we have trial sizes for purchase. You can buy an individual recipe for $2.48, or a bundle of all three for $6.99. Check them out »
Every so often, we offer free trials to our loyal fans. If you’d like to stay up to date about when those offers are live, sign up for our email list at the bottom of this page.
You can read up on our policy regarding returns and exchanges here.
About Feeding
Nope! But you should always have water available for your pup, especially during meals. Should you choose to add a liquid, you can find our recommended proportion of food to liquid on the individual recipe pages.
We would recommend adding a warm water or broth as it will help keep your dog hydrated. (If you’re worried about losing the crunch appeal after adding water, worry no more! The dry-roasted pieces in the food will maintain the majority of their crunch even after soaking in water.)
We’ve yet to have any cases of leftovers with our dogs, but should you end up with some extra in the bowl, you can transfer it to a air-tight container and store in the refrigerator for up to five days.
Absolutely! If it doesn’t line up for you to feed Simple Food exclusively, the next best thing is to give it as a topper. The quality of our food can add a healthy (and delicious) boost to your dog’s regular diet.
About the Packaging
We package our food in 1 ½ lb. bags regardless of the box size. That’s why there are two bags in the 3 lb. box and four in the 6 lb. We opted to do it this way because we wanted to keep the food as fresh as possible for as long as possible, even with the larger quantity orders. Even though the bags are resealable, oxygen will immediately begin to break down nutrients once the laser seal is broken (which is true for all foods!).
By keeping the food factory sealed for longer, we can help keep the last meal of the box just as fresh as the first.
So glad you asked! The three dogs we used on our packaging are Dr. Astronaut (an employee dog), Primer (a neighbor dog) and Schmiddy (the boss’s dog). They all are dogs we know and love (among so many others) and are our inspiration when developing formulas.
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The Simple Food Project
1823 Executive Drive
Oconomowoc, WI 53066
800-451-5267
