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ChefPaw’s home-cooked pet food device taps into personalisation trend

ChefPaw’s kitchen appliance allows pet owners to create home-cooked pet food, saving them time and money while maximising nutrition for each individual pet, it says.

Los Angeles-based ChefPaw, part of Innovet Pet Products, has developed a machine to weigh and mix fresh ingredients while the accompanying app provides information on recipe creation, portioning, and the cooking processes.

The three main aims of the machine, called the ChefPaw Pet Food Maker, are to save money and time, while maximising nutrition for each individual pet, explained Innovet Pet Products chief executive officer Matt Terrill.

“ChefPaw streamlines the entire process from finding recipes that align with their pet’s specific needs, to the cooking process with recipe instructions, to the clean-up process with our self-clean mode and dishwasher-safe parts,” he said.

“The ChefPaw App helps users quickly find recipes that match their pet’s profile and provides a grocery list with the exact ingredients needed, with the option to select multiple batches to automatically adjust quantities.

“When it’s time to cook, the app provides easy step-by-step instructions for adding ingredients into the ChefPaw machine. With the built-in scale, measuring ingredients is quick and precise. ChefPaw then handles the rest with a 40-minute cooking cycle – turning what is normally a 2.5-hour process into a fast, simple routine with minimal prep and easy clean-up thanks to the self-clean mode and dishwasher-safe parts.”

‘Breed-specific, age-specific’ personalised pet food

The personalisation of pet food – optimising the formulation to best suit the requirements of an individual animal – is becoming more popular. Market research company Future Market Insights recently identified “personalised nutrition, breed-specific and age-specific formulations as major emerging trends, driven by owners seeking tailored health outcomes” as an emerging trend in the sector.

“Instead of paying a premium for subscription-based fresh food services, ChefPaw allows pet owners to choose the exact ingredients they want to include, ensuring every meal is tailored to their pet’s specific needs,” said Terrill.

“Using the ChefPaw App, pet parents can create a pet profile with details like age, weight, activity level, and food sensitivities. The app then recommends recipes that match their pet’s nutritional needs, while still allowing full flexibility to select ingredients that work best for their pet,” he added.

“Each recipe within the app includes a complete nutritional breakdown across 60-plus nutrient data points, giving pet parents full transparency into what their pet is eating. The app also calculates a precise serving size for each recipe based on the pet’s profile, ensuring every meal delivers the right balance of nutrients.”

ChefPaw: Suitable for food ingredients and supplements

As well as fresh foodstuffs, the ChefPaw system can also incorporate supplements to provide additional vitamins and minerals where required.

“Supplementation is an important part of preparing nutritionally balanced fresh meals for pets,” said Terrill. “Due to natural dietary limitations, there is no single fresh food recipe that can consistently provide every vitamin and mineral a pet needs on its own – especially critical nutrients like calcium. Because of this, ChefPaw recipes are designed to work alongside targeted supplements to help ensure pets receive a complete and balanced nutrient profile.”

ChefPaw offers its own range of supplements that can be added to its recipes, including the Nutrition Booster, which contains more than 25 essential vitamins and minerals and three sources of calcium, and the Innovet Hemp + Salmon Oil supplement, both of which are included in the majority of ChefPaw recipes, explained Terrill.

Further supplements include the Nutrition Booster for Puppies; the Sensitive Blend Nutrition Booster; ChefPaw Eggshell Powder which provides additional calcium; and a Carnivore Nutrition Booster for cats.

Past and future

“ChefPaw was born out of necessity for two very different dogs: my bulldog, Gordon, and my labrador, Maverick,” said Terrill. “Gordon was allergic to nearly everything, which meant he needed a highly customised diet. Maverick, on the other hand, had endless energy and required a high-calorie diet just to keep up with his activity level. For a while, I was feeding them fresh meals from JustFoodForDogs, but the cost quickly became unsustainable – over $1,000 a month to feed both dogs.

“To manage Gordon’s allergies, I had to order a custom recipe that excluded specific ingredients, which increased the price even more. Maverick required one of the highest-calorie meal plans available, which also came at a premium. Meanwhile, my mom had been cooking homemade dog food for years and encouraged me to try it myself.

“The problem was time. As a business owner, I didn’t have hours each week to prepare two separate homemade recipes for my dogs. That’s when the idea for ChefPaw was born.”

ChefPaw was recognised for its innovation at the Petcare Innovation Prize, a global competition organised by Nestlé Purina.

“It’s an honour to be recognised by Purina for bringing innovation to the pet nutrition space,” said Terrill. “That kind of validation from one of the most respected companies in the industry means a lot to our team and reinforces that we’re moving in the right direction.

“Beyond the recognition, we’re also very excited about the potential opportunities that could come from being involved with the prize. We believe ChefPaw and Purina could complement each other very well. For example, Purina has been developing advanced tools like DNA testing to help identify the unique nutritional needs of individual pets. ChefPaw provides the perfect way for pet parents to act on that information by creating customised batches of fresh food tailored specifically to their pet.”