The pet food industry uses significant quantities of animal-derived ingredients, raising welfare questions about the animals that go into pet food and the environmental footprint of feeding companion animals.
The welfare and environmental footprint of pet food is a genuinely complex ethical issue. Feeding carnivorous pets requires the death of other animals - whether farmed mammals, fish or insects. The welfare case for switching to insect-based or novel protein pet foods rests on uncertain but possibly significant welfare advantages for the insects involved compared to farmed fish or factory-farmed poultry. For dog owners, plant-based diets are increasingly viable and nutritionally complete. For cat owners, the obligate carnivore physiology creates genuine constraints on how far the pet food sustainability challenge can be solved without compromise. Transparency in pet food sourcing and genuine engagement with these trade-offs is what responsible pet ownership requires.