Having a pet is the best decision one could make. Yet owning and feeding them the right meal is not that easy as it seems. Just like they love and guard us unconditionally, we as pet owners have equal responsibility towards their well being, nutrition and grooming.
DawgieBowl is a custom packed meal to meet the unique nutritional requirements of your pet, delivered right at your doorstep. While DawgieBowl is for dogs, they also have KittieBowl, designed exclusively for cats.
In an exclusive conversation with LifeBeyondNumbers, Abhishek Agarwal, Co-Founder of DawgieBowl, explained the concept, journey, and response received by the brand.
DawgieBowl – What is it?
DawgieBowl is very different from the traditional manner in which a pet parent is used to feed their pet.
For years now, the pet parents in India have either fed their pets nutritionally deficient and species-inappropriate homemade diets or store-bought bags of fancily packaged products. Here’s where DawgieBowl comes in. The company creates a custom made meal meant exclusively for your pet fetching all its nutritional requirements.
The brand’s recipes are tested and approved both by vets, customers, and loved by the pets themselves. They are the only Indian brand that offers vacuum dried pet food that is 100% natural, species-appropriate, balanced, and complete. What’s even more convenient is that the meals are ready-to-serve, with no by-products, gluten, corn or soy-based fillers, preservatives, colors, flavors, or taste enhancers like MSG.
The Journey
Abhishek grew up in a family with more pets around him than humans. However, after over a decade long corporate career and staying alone, he finally decided to get home a pet.
“The day I decided to finally adopt a dog, one of the biggest worries that popped up was, what is he/she going to eat?” shared Abhishek.
This very concern was the trigger behind the DawgieBowl idea. Abhishek somehow felt that his dog is not meant to have the same meals as him or even be fed with packaged pet food. He thought that he needed to provide his pet the right food and so he researched and experimented for two long years to learn the right meal plan.
“I always knew that packaged pet foods were inappropriate. So I started looking for either worthy pet food or a way to process food in bulk and store it to feed my pet over time. I started my research on what an ideal diet must look like. It obviously involved understanding the needs of a pet, the fundamentals of nutrition, food processing methods, regulations and policies, nutrition labels, etc. It took me 2 years to understand what I needed,” he further explained.
After acquiring the prerequisite knowledge, Abhishek prepared a recipe and started offering it to his neighborhood street dogs, and to other dogs that his friends owned. His recipes did wonders and there were more requests.
With this small local pilot, he realized that there were many pet parents out there who conceived the subject well and were ready to spend for the right nutrition of their pet. And Dawgiebowl was born.
Abhishek was then joined by Nitin Madaan, his friend and co-worker for 8 years. Both of them graduated from completely different disciplines yet shared similar interests.
On August 26th, 2016 (International Dog Day), the duo launched the brand with a capital of 2 Lakhs. The company went cash-positive in the 8th month and has been fuelling its growth ever since. The bootstrapped company has 8 members as of now. They have an industrial facility in Noida with a production capacity of over 500 kgs per day.
To date, DawgieBowl has served over 900+ pets, has 160 pets currently on subscription, and about 3 dozen on ad-hoc basis every month pan India (tier-one cities).
The journey has been incessant despite the pandemic. They have a 75% repeat order rate with weekly packs and a 94% renewal rate with their monthly subscriptions.
How to get DawgieBowl for your own pet?
In order to avail of DawgieBowl’s meals, you have to create a profile of your pet on their website in which you have to mention all the details such as breed, age, weight, etc. Following this, you have to coordinate with the brand’s representative to help design the meal plan. And you are good to go. The customized meal is delivered to your address. Just unpack and serve.
Your little superhero deserves endless love, a healthy lifestyle, and a balanced diet. Because healthy dogs make healthy families.