WOODBRIDGE, ONTARIO — For Leone Fine Foods, a step into pet nutrition isn’t far off. As a family-owned meat producer based in Toronto, the company is familiar to pet owners looking for raw and minimally processed nutrition for their four-legged companions.
“My dad has been in the meat industry since 1993, so we’ve been around a long time,” says Michael Leone, founder of The Butcher’s Pup and former vice president of sales and marketing at Leone Fine Foods. “It was very organic for us to go into the pet food world. A few years ago, we started making raw dog food locally — not even on a brand scale, just using what was available that we have in stock to help customers feed their dogs.”
Michael Leone, founder of The Butcher’s Pup.
| Source: The Butcher’s PupIt didn’t take long for Leone to realize that there was a white space in the industry for gently cooked dog food, and that Leone Fine Foods had the necessary scale and know-how to meet these needs. In 2021, The Butcher’s Pup officially launched with three single-source protein dinners for dogs, and most recently added a first-to-market product to its growing portfolio — Sous-Vide Sausages.
“Sausages for dogs is another thing that happened organically and came from our human food operations,” Leone said. “We make sausages every week, which are sold at retail and in grocery chains.”
According to Leone, the Sausages line was developed as an entry level option for curious consumers, and the products have already caught retail eyeballs. Each ¼-lb sausage is complete and balanced and sold in 1-lb bags, four to a pack. Proteins include beef, chicken and pork, and all sausages are made from natural pork casings.
Although the sausages are complete-and-balanced to meet all of a dog’s dietary needs, Leone said the product has also become popular as a food enhancer.
“We’re learning now that sausage is so versatile that people use it as a topping or a frozen treat,” he said.
While The Butcher’s Pup leverages the nutritional and manufacturing expertise from Leone Fine Foods, the brand operates separate production and sources all of its pet food ingredients specifically for the brand.
“When we first started, we used offcuts suitable for pet food, but now we buy everything for our dog food formulas,” Leone explains.
Source: The Butcher’s PupThe Butcher’s Pup portfolio includes three sous-vide dinners and three sous-vide sausages, each available in single-source beef, chicken and pork proteins. All formulas are complete-and-balanced and incorporate human ingredients. The product is produced, packaged and vacuum sealed before entering the commercial-scale sous vide cooker at The Butcher’s Pup plant in Toronto, which is regulated by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
“Some people don’t want to serve raw, so we looked for something that mimics a raw diet, with fewer ingredients and a natural cooking method to reduce nutritional loss,” he added. . “That’s where sous-vide checks all the boxes.”
For its Sous-Vide Dinner and Sausages products, The Butcher’s Pup also includes natural ingredients pet owners will recognize on the label, including dried shitake mushrooms, broccoli, oranges, cranberries, pumpkin , spinach, beets, cherries, strawberries and blueberries.
Beef heart and liver, as well as chicken and pork liver, are also included in their respective formulas to help meet nutritional guidelines for vitamins and minerals.
“If you look at our ingredient panel, it’s primarily muscle meat,” Leone said. “We use beef liver and heart, but we don’t really interfere with other organs or products.”
Butcher’s Pup focuses exclusively on the independent pet retail channel. The brand is currently distributed across Canada and is now working to expand its presence in the United States.
“Right now, our focus is getting more traction for our new company,” Leone said. “We’re looking for more independent pet retail shelves, and we’re counting on our distributor partners who have been in the industry for the last 40, 50, 60 years to support that expansion.”
With this latest product and growing distribution in the United States, The Butcher’s Pup aims to be part of the gently cooked pet food revolution as pet owners discover the nutritional benefits of minimal processing, and as the category moves closer to price parity with other pet food formats. Leone said he expects a shift to more minimally processed pet diets in the next five years.
“What makes me most happy is the satisfaction of the product,” says Leone. “I’m happy to say that we’ve created a product that dogs really enjoy, and it does everything you could ask for from a health perspective. Our dogs are not here for a long time, but let’s make their lives the best we can.”
Read more about new pet food and treat products.
