Podcast Appearance: The Paleo Podcast – The Home of Raw Dog Food – Sharon Daly and the History of Paleo Ridge

Transcript of Episode (produced by AI):

Welcome to the Paleo Podcast, the official Paleo-rich podcast that covers all things to do of raw feeding, dogs, and how to feed them, and of course, Paleo-rich.

The podcast is hosted by me, your very croaky voice, will-green, and Esther Lok, and both of us come from Paleo-rich, the UK’s premium manufacturer of raw dog food.

You can reach us on our social channels at Paleo-rich on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter, and we have a Facebook business page and group, just look up Paleo-rich.

If you’d like to support the podcast, please just share us with your dog-parent friends, the Eva-supposative review and keep listening.

In this episode, we’re talking to Sharon Daily, who started Paleo-rich 10 years ago this month.

So we take a trip down memory lane in a room full of freezers.

At Sharon’s new shop, your pets naturally, based in Waterlooville.

And in hindsight, it was an awful decision to record it in a room full of freezers, but we’re keeping it real.

So let’s dive in.

So, we’re at 10 years, can you believe it? No, no, it’s been a journey.

It’s been a journey.

Sometimes it feels like it’s been twice as long, and at the time, like half that time, or a year, you get sentiment, or now, to talk about that.

I believe it’s been 10 years.

Can you tell us what? It was like 10 years ago, and how basically how you got into creating Paleo-rich.

Paleo-rich would not exist if it wasn’t from my first reach back currently.

Sadly, he got cancer when he was seven, osteo-saccommer, bone cancer, and the prognosis was very, very grim, and I, like a huge amount of other people, had no idea about raw, I just feds, cheap, kibble, that everybody’s subject to social conditioning, and that is what I thought you’ve fed a dog without questioning it.

But when he got cancer, it turned, like my wound upside down, kids were all small, and he was out rock, you know, he was a fantastic dog, so it was a big shock, and I started to just investigate what I could do to help keep him alive longer than the vet, so that’s given six months to a year, and, you know, various different kept coming up, and raw was the predominant one, various different recipes, and I kept ignoring it, because it wasn’t on my very go at all.

I’ve never heard of it, didn’t have any understanding of it, but just, you know, just about every search, every hour, a day, weeks, spent looking, it was just there, and I thought, well, you know, if it’s what I’ve got to lose, you know, in giving it a go, if it can be, some more time with herbs, and that is a rabbit hole that I didn’t come out of, yeah, to have this leg amputated, and the vet said that he’d be dead within nine months, because the cancer was so aggressive, it would have massacised already, and, you know, they warned me what to prepare for, you know, because I, just every time we cough, splattered, you know, it was a bit lefagic, I thought, this is what, you know, this is the start of it.

It just didn’t happen, it didn’t happen.

I should go back after that, so that after he had his leg amputated, I’d switched him to raw in two weeks, and the difference it made was absolutely incredible, not because he had cancer, just to his general well-being, watching him to enjoy his food, and, you know, like, I’m not going to lie, I was terrified the first time I would give him a chicken carcasshole, but I’d been YouTube in all of the videos, and I, you know, I remember just standing there, so close to my eyes and thinking like, this is okay, you know, like, I’ve seen the videos, stalks, just going to read it, because it just is so alien, you know, to begin with, anyway, our God, he loved it, he absolutely loved it, and I had three other witchbacks at the time, and they were all switched immediately, which left me with another problem, like for very large dogs to feed on a budget that probably wasn’t going to stretch, so I was calling around more companies, I wanted to know what was in before, and nobody would tell me, nobody, you know, have like beef, is it, is it be for long, is it be for liver, what’s in it, and nobody, nobody would dive home, just that information, and there was only maybe a five or six companies around at that time, so I decided that I would, not squeamish, I’d go to repertoire, I’d contact 10 to 12 myself, I’d save money, and I’d also be able to get it direct from source, and I would know the quality, the provenance of everything I was feeding my dogs, after a cancer shock, you know, my outlook changed completely, so that’s what I did, I was visiting Abboto, Abboto, it was probably three or four, sometimes driving, three or four hours, two, two, you know, it’s not that many on the doorstep, and that’s what I did, and I went and got all of the different components, and it was very much a DIY feeder, all we would term a DIY feeder, so I didn’t have a mincer, so everything was fed whole, as it came, the dogs thrived, they absolutely loved it, that’s amazing, especially to go and do like all your own research on it as well, I mean like watching YouTube videos before actually feeding certain, you know, certain things, and that’s, I suppose that’s the beauty of having YouTube and places like that, it’s been able to do the research, but that’s a really amazing story, an amazing kind of start to pay the year-age.

Yeah, I mean, 10 years ago, there wasn’t the huge amount of additional information, because war is now much more popular, but there was some about, so yeah, it was really useful to be able to watch research and you know, get confidence, and I’m, I’m, as hopeful for our customers and those that haven’t fed more, that they do the same, and I’m sure they do, it gives them, you know, like that little confidence booth, like it’s okay, you know, this is, because it, like I said, it’s totally totally out of the ballpark from where I had been, so, and then, you know, into dropping all sorts of parts out of, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but I absolutely knocked it, dogs, dogs absolutely five don’t know, I just couldn’t believe how I’d, I’d never heard of war, and how I, you know, I, I, I still even now feel awful, that I have a fed such poor quality, kind of recorded food, processed, you know, totally inappropriate garbage, basically, to an animal that I absolutely loved.

I think it’s, like, amazing that you actually went to the appetite of yourself to go and pick the ingredients that are going into their food, because I don’t think there’s a lot of, a lot of dog food companies who can say they know exactly what goes into their meals.

No, no, you know, it’s, you know, you know, I think, from, from the very beginning, you know, I, obviously I hadn’t realized, but paleo probably wasn’t in my mind then, but the, the, the foundations of of what I strongly believed, that I wanted to think my dog’s the quality, the provenance, was, was developing, just in, in the way that I fed my own dogs, and, and it was, it was really, really interesting, that when I did actually, you know, get my death relicents, and those very, very, very earliest days, it was so really heartwarming to, to find that so many other people, you know, that was really important to them to, and, you know, hence paleo success, you know, the, the quality of the products, visited the appetite, you know, I was going to all the animals whilst myself, I wanted to see what, you know, what, what was being fed, how it was being treated, you know, the quality, there was plenty of stuff that I turned down, it’s not just a feed anything, I just, I just wanted the best for my dogs, yeah, and that is, yeah, I believe everybody ultimately wants the best for their dogs.

100% and I think that’s why a lot of customers have so much faith in paleo riches, because that is probably one of the biggest USPs, which is that we won’t compromise on quality.

No, I know, and I, I know, you know, I remember even going back, you know, there were, oh, God, I’m told numerous occasions where we’d, we’d tempered up to wait and the suppliers were, I think, to begin with, they thought we would joke in, but, you know, it is, it because they just hadn’t dealt with a more company that had the standards and stuck by them, you know, I’m not, I’m not that’s not to, to cast a spursions on any other company, but I mean, we really did stick to our guns on quality, you know, it’s important now, as it was, you know, before conception and a conception.

Yeah, and I think like, so with your, once you found like the ingredients and everything that you wanted to give for the dogs, was that what spurred you want to kind of delve into the world of nutrition? Yes, 80, 10, 10 is the standard for, you know, that, and, you know, the, the idea is that we’re doing our best to mimic the proportions of bone-off and meat that dog would have, if they were taken down like wild, we’d say wild prey, you know, they’re the sort of things that they would have been naturally, that’s what we’re trying to mimic, and that generally is, but at that proportion, 80, 10, you know, obviously a lot of I will happily admit that, you know, in the starts, I want to say, I separate my professional beliefs now from my personal ones to begin with, I was absolutely militant, 80, 10, 10, no-vage, a dog’s a carnivores, but I’ve learned along the way to soften, it’s, it’s up to the, you know, there’s no right or wrong, those that do do, and those that don’t, yeah, that’s it, yeah, that’s good, because I know there’s, there’s still now there’s a huge debate around it, isn’t there, but I think that’s why it’s important to have like ranges to, so everybody, so you’ve got the 80, 10, 10, and then we’ve got the paleo plus, and then the essential, as well, just to.

Absolutely, and when we started, you know, it was all 80, 10, 10, and when we started, we did a huge amount of DIY products for a number of reasons, because it was how I fed, that was, you know, and we didn’t have the factory and cotton equipment to, to be able to produce, you know, what we do now, so, a lot of it was, was coal items, and then obviously, you know, as a business, you grow, you know, research, grows, you knowledge, and yeah, essentials was, was the perfect answer to those customers that wanted to feed paleo, but also want to be a big, you know, and, you know, it’s a fantastic product.

So, going back to 10 years ago, when we first opened paleo, we just thought, and we had actually a couple of customers who emailed in, because we’ve been looking for our longest standing customers, and some of them have said, they remember when we did zebra and ostrich.

Yeah, absolutely, you know.

Do you remember any of, were there any other kind of obscure proteins or products that we did that we don’t do now? Yeah, of course we had, I, I, I couldn’t have been asked for a back full of ice, and I went to the appetite and got, I’m really, yeah, because it’s so high protein, we had testicles, pizzles, sheep’s heads, cow heads, brain, we did at one point now, brain, that’s interesting.

I mean, you know, they’re all, if a dog, the wild was, was eating naturally, you know, they, what we call weak to feed, they, they, you know, everything.

But obviously, they were saying that maybe more for your half-core DIY, because they were actually a brain like in a packet, and it would be fair to say that, probably, you know, there’s probably a fair amount of dogs that probably wouldn’t just texture consistency, but, you know, we didn’t quite taste that.

Yeah, we did lots of things, you know, delix, like whole rabbits, which we can’t get for love, no money, and, uh, whole wild rabbits, or pigeon, pigeon, yeah, fazard, quail, gosh, just, just anything that basically, you know, was running around the British countryside, we, that was obviously killed, you mainly, I’ve got always check source.

Yeah, it’s interesting to see that now, I think, like probably from 10 years ago to now, I imagine there was a lot more people who did DIY feeding, where it was now, I think, because everybody has such busy lives, the complete meals are kind of more convenient and easier for people to do, because I think people who are switching from, you know, processed foods, they want something, they can just defrost and serve up.

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, even like, going back to when Polio started, when I got my first death of license, we didn’t have a mixer, so everything we did was everything, you know, there was no, if, if mince came, I think, I think we did a couple of, like, Venice and mince’s, I’d asked the guys from the, the game ladder to mince it for me, because we didn’t have a mixer, as soon as we were able to get our first mince, which was a table top mince, with a freaking plug, that’s like, I mean, it was clear even then that they were going to be the most, the most popular, because people wanted that, the security of knowing that, like, everything, so they need to, you know, you need to have a bit more time to chop things up and, and make sure they are getting it right, whereas if everything is already done for you in a mince, you know, we live in a world where convenience is king, so it was clear from that very first mince that they were about it out, you know, that they were the things that we sold out of the quickest, always first.

And just mentioned about bagging things up and packaging, it wasn’t, it was probably a rich one of the first to introduce ethical packaging.

Paleo was the first company, we’ve had a lot of first, and we continued to, to use the buyer to gradeable boxes.

We were the first company to introduce a chunk of mince, the reason for that was purely because, because I had a few orders from other more companies before that it was going to happen to us.

It was very sloppy and tasty, and I had kind of come to the conclusion that you could, you could hide them all for long in that, and I wanted to product that people could see what was in it, you know, like, again, quality and to be able to know that, like, it isn’t just, you know, you could actually see the meat chunks, you could see that, you know, you could see that it was quality basically, and that’s so important, like, for me, and I wanted to be able to, you know, some, I see somehow pass that on, but, like, you know, in a chunk you meant you can’t hide, you can’t actually be greedy, I believe.

So, we were the first to introduce 10 mill plate, and that was just me messing around with, like, how do I want it to look for my box, how would I like it, you know, and that was, you know, that meant that looks like a really lovely, good quality, meant so you can see, you can see the ingredients, and that’s how that came about.

Yeah, when we first started, we double bagged everything, but that, you know, we quickly changed to the, the, the biodegradable boxes, because, you know, again, it’s something that’s very important to me personally, and as soon as we were able to afford to, you know, we, we, we made that switch to be environmentally friendly, you know, we’ve continued for the past 10 years to be, I want to say, game changes every step of the way, things that we’ve introduced were groundbreaking, that just hadn’t been seen in the more industry before.

Definitely, that’s amazing, and also, I know, like, put the packaging side of things, I still speak to customers today who say that they’re switching over to us, because of our packaging, well, obviously, and because of the food, the quality of it, but because there are so many other companies who use plastic and polystyrene, and if you’re feeding, you know, two or three dogs, and you’re getting those regular deliveries, then the, the plastic buildup is just, just, no worries.

Yeah, and, you know, I, I, I hear it these days, you know, even now in the shop, I mean, I see myself, and I get deliveries, and when I’m getting the deliveries of polystyrene, they are, I mean, you know, it’s, it’s not my place, and the companies are doing, you know, whatever, that, you know, they need to do, there are more, you know, eco-friendly options, and, you know, we, as we found, the wall is just as good as not better, so, you know, it does matter if you’ve got big dogs.

That plastic really, really, that’s that.

And we’ve been spending every four night, it’s just a nightmare that is, yeah, it’s too much.

What do you think the raw industry is going to look like in 10 years from now? Or change a lot in the last 10, but that’s a good, that’s a good question, anything specific or just generally.

Just, I think, you know, we know that in the last 10 years, raw feeding is gone from, you know, less than 5% of people feeding their dogs to arguably 15-20% of people who have now fed raw to their dogs, whether they do consistently feed raw or not, just, you know, that’s such a big change in the market.

I just wonder what you think will happen in the next 10 years.

I think that it will continue to grow.

I think it will be more heavily selected, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

One of the biggest sort of, like, marketing sort of attacks, if you like, on raw is that it’s unsafe, you know, it’s bacteria, you know, people are going to kill themselves in their kitchen.

We’re not silly as a nation, you’re just following the same hygiene practices for me.

I digress 10 years.

I think it will be more legislated.

I very much think that, like, now, you know, we’ve got more interest rates and mainstream supermarket and other first, that others will follow, and that can only be a good thing for all of the, you know, the dog owners, because currently, all of the big supermarket have a pet food aisle, and there isn’t a single thing down that pet food aisle that is really suitable to put in a dog’s bowl.

So that, you know, that, I’d love to see the, the aisle half-freezes, and people having the choice to feed their dogs, natural food.

I think also, sadly, because of the amount of health problems that I’m afflicted on dogs, say, with humans, but that’s another much longer story to.

We’ve totally inappropriate food, you know, more dogs are suffering health issues than they ever were before.

We’ve got 40% of dogs are dying from cancer.

The top three issues are eager and allergies, and so many of them are related to poor quality food.

I even hesitate to call it food because I don’t have to come up with another term.

Yeah, that’s tough.

Yeah, manufactured stuff.

It has no place in their bodies, basically, because they should be, you know, so in 10 years time, yeah, I’d like to see, I’d like to see every dog on a, on a diet that, let’s face it, they are, you know, they are a carnival, a guard list of some of the arguments that are put forwards, that they’ve been, you know, that we’ve, we’ve changed them or domesticated them internally.

Their digestive system is that of a carnival, and, you know, we should feed them an appropriate diet based on their biological Also, so I think it’s interesting you’re saying about wanting to make a product and really, when you go back to the origin story of a period, making a product that you want to feed to your dogs, and then making that available for everybody else, which makes me think of the time we launched a period of plus and how that came about, because as I understand it, I’ve always known that, that was just before I started, but it was wanting to have this kind of advance rule of dog food, that we wanted to feed to our dogs, but it wasn’t available anywhere really, so how did that come about? We had, again, I would be, with the, like the 80, 10, 10 origins, we had been toying with a a product, because, you know, at the end of the day, you know, you want to be able to provide something that is not only, you know, exceptional, but it’s, you know, just 100% healthy, a natural, you know, it’s got the nutrition, the dogs need, and, you know, again, coming back to the origins, that quality, and, you know, I love my dogs, but my dogs are my everything, and, like, many, lost a few and all the way in it, is really painful, but I just figured that if I could make something that would be happy for my dogs, like, I knew that other people love their dogs as much as I love mine, and that was, like, kind of, the main, if I could satisfy my own, like, insane desire to nutritionally feed them correctly, and with quality, that, you know, that I couldn’t do any more than that, and that others that love their dogs would also, you know, they’d get it, and they did, so in on mass, post-peleo class is an incredible product.

We collaborated with Dr.

Connor Brady for that one, he came over, and we, you know, we split forward around the table for, I think, it was two or three days, but I kind of knew ultimately what we wanted, but, again, it had never been done before, and, from that one, from the ground up, we were looking at nutritional excellence.

So, in paleo plus, we looked at an array of different offels, because most, it’s liver and kidney, we looked at, you know, the nutritionals for and additives, but we didn’t want to do, again, kind of that crossover between being at 80-10, no veg.

At that point, we, you know, a lot of the light right out there sort of, you know, people that are at the top of their game, we’re talking about, you know, 20% isn’t really something that a dog would naturally eat in a natural environment, but 5% possibly, because they’d be eating the stomach content of other, you know, small animals, so there would be consuming some veg, and we were trying to mimic the ultimate closest more diet that would have the ultimate nutrition, and I think we, we really achieved that, but from the bottom up, we looked at the ingredients and the price, the price came last for that product.

We looked at what we could add that would surpass everything that they needed and some, and, you know, try not to break the bank, but it really was a, it was a product first, and the price in was all done after for that product.

Like we had seen this night’s fire done now, long looking at the prices and going, we just, you know, it’s got all the fire, because it’s so far out, but it was, it was a massive success and we launched it.

So again, it was clear that people were looking for the, you know, the ultimate in nutrition from a healthy standpoint for the dogs.

Yeah, definitely.

And just having relaunched it as well.

It’s fantastic.

I’m going to tell you, you blew it out of the park with me.

I know that there was a team, but like, I don’t know, one of the videos that you’ve done.

I don’t know what to do, and I’m like, why isn’t everyone feeling this? Usually, I went out to my freezer, I’m like, paleo plus, I was a side, you know, that is, it just, it was a really timely reminder of what an absolutely fantastic product.

And I’m not saying that, just because it’s paleo, you know, I can acknowledge excellence in any field, but there’s, you know, nobody’s matched it, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I think for me, the wheat, we did have a look at a product.

You know, we’ve reviewed the product as to whether to do a need to make any changes to the ingredients, to do a need to tweak the, you know, the very good recipe or anything like that.

And we didn’t, we kept it the same, because the product at the end of the day, the product was exactly what it needed to be, but the packaging didn’t represent that.

And that’s what we changed, you know, needed to show that this is our flagship, this is our best range.

And that’s absolutely true.

And actually, funny enough, the original packaging for polio plus was actually designed in house by me.

So, you know, I mean, so, so much of everything we’ve done her days, probably really into your arrival, well, because obviously you’re head of marketing and sales.

But you know, that is both a place in an occurs when you’re running your own business, because you have cart branch to come up with your own idea.

Yeah.

But, you know, we as a company have an absolute hive of fantastic minds.

Yeah.

And, you know, polio plus new packaging is, you know, certainly.

I’ve definitely got to give her a shout out to Chloe on this, by the way, because she designed it, it’s kind of my first year, we’ve redesigned classics.

Well, I say redesigned classics.

We’ve moved from zebra labels, black and white labels, into like sleeves for that, range, which was massive, wasn’t there, that’s a huge bit of work.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don’t almost got them about that.

So, that’s a memory.

So, that’s a memory from, like, even going back when we were back in, and obviously we had to be compliant with like, different regulations.

But it was actually, like, all I could afford was a little brother print, so that was £40 that popped out these I remember reaching the point.

Maybe a year or two in where we were like, this machine is not fast enough.

Like, we were having to go into our early, to print all the labels to get them off.

But it’s funny when, you know, when you’re in a massive growth period, but you’re also doing something that you love.

There’s so many things that you’re not focused on, focused in on, like, our focus was only ever a personal quality product.

That’s probably so into, you know, and to get in it out, because, you know, we were selling it and still doing faster than faster than it’s been made.

Yeah.

Another thing that I was thinking about when we were leading up to this interview as well, was, do you remember, we did the photo sheet for all the ingredients and all the products? I’m quite lucky.

My phone’s got thousands of pictures.

If anybody ever finds my phone, they’re going to think, what the hell? Because it’s full of, it’s full of body parts from animals.

Like, you know, lovely chunk of mitses, all just think that I have an obsession.

Well, it’s true.

Yeah.

It’s an obsession.

A good obsession with a healthy obsession.

I think one of the things I was thinking about, because we wanted to capture every product, which meant that we had to have one of every ingredient.

And I remember you said, there was a little heart, and you know, it’s not a little cute heart, I was like, it’s a figure that’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone say, oh, it’s a little cute heart.

It’s not lovely heart.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, trying to make, trying to make like DIY more look pretty for a camera is a tough gig.

We did it.

We did it.

We did it.

And again, grab breaking because of no other company up until that point.

Obviously, I was always followed.

No other company had been braving up to lay out truly.

You know, you see these packaging that got like, stake on it in the land, breast.

And I, I appalled that because I think it, you know, the outside should represent what’s on the inside.

But we were the first company.

And I remember like saying to Tyler, who’s working alongside me at the time, this is what I want to do.

I want to lay out all the ingredients.

Yeah.

And he was like, wow, yeah, you know, like, yeah, let’s do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And yeah.

And again, two or three days, wasn’t it a little production line.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you remember when we had the photo shoot? Yeah.

We set it up in the other unit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was a job.

That was a job to get to get all those.

But we did.

We did it.

Yeah.

We had little production line going.

I think I remember your mail getting a load of ingredients over.

We had that de-frost thing.

Yeah.

I couldn’t figure it off that because we hadn’t de-frosted the stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because we had to set out all of the ingredients specifically with the bowl of mince.

Exactly.

Yeah.

It was no mean feat because obviously most of our recipes have got multiple, multiple ingredients.

It was like a mini production line.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it was great.

You know, I think, you know, we achieved exactly what we wanted to.

Yeah.

And that, again, from conception and before we had transparency of ingredients like, we’re not trying to say, oh, look at this chicken breast because nobody’s put chicken breast in there.

Unless you’re set by a little bind chicken breast hole, all, you know, you’ve picked it up freezer burn or something like that.

You know, so those were the, they were like, come out of a factory.

I’d gone in there as well myself.

Yeah.

To pull those products out of our fridge.

Yeah.

Like, because the scratcher has had gone well, we got, well, we sure of all these products.

Great stuff.

And again, I think, I think that for the most part, you know, our customers truly recognize that, you know, that transparency, because at the time, you know, there’s more companies now that are much more transparent.

But at the time, it was just something totally new.

You know, all that was attainable really was some, some sopumences in, in tubes.

And I’m not discrediting it.

That would still be a thousand times better than any kibble that you could feed.

But actually, to be able to go to somebody and say, what’s in your food and have four declosure disclosure was actually, you know, we were the first to do that.

Yeah.

I think the other thing I remember, that similar time, is this was all in preparation to most of the new website, which is not new anymore.

It’s about three years old.

Because we’d have one down before that.

That wasn’t, wasn’t, we didn’t find out.

It was quite front end, but the back end stuff wasn’t quite, yeah.

Yeah, we did this for all the photos for the products, because we had the packaging, we wanted to show the actual products.

So that was for this.

And do you remember all of the work that we had to put in? Well, not, I say we, it was you guys for all of the new items and, you know, all the raw feeding advice and stuff? Oh yeah, the website, the content, the website was massive.

I mean, you did the majority of that.

But I remember going through and reading it all one day just to make sure it was true.

Because you also, like, you’re proof-reading, but just the personality check on it and make sure.

Oh, gosh, that was an epic guitar.

And there’s still so many things that, you know, I think, are that make a great article, because because knowledge is everything.

And as, as we move forward, you know, who knows, in 10 years time, who knows, the recipes might be totally different.

Somebody, you know, everything evolves.

So it’s not, you know, it’s not, it’s not good enough just to sit on your laurels and go like this.

And you know, like, because I know, like, in the development team and, and everything.

And it’s, it’s always like, we’re always looking to the future.

What can we improve on them? You know, what can we do better? And can we serve dogs better? And that, that is, you know, that is, that will never, that will never subside.

Because we’ve got, you know, got a great question to do.

I remember saying at the top level, to you guys, right, I know that there’s loads and loads and loads of benefits, or, but like, I need to have somewhere between five to eight.

Can you just give me to five to eight top level ones? I remember the discussions and that, and it was kind of like, can we just say, like, general well-being for one and, you know, because it, because there’s all these benefits, you know, the hair, the teeth, the eyes and all sorts of behavior.

Trying to categorize them into, if you like, eight, you know, from the top pyramid, to spread them out, but I think, you know, again, there’s so much knowledge about that.

Not people of copy that now, or say.

But not people of copy that, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

What happens when you spray? It’s something about sounding arrogant, but, you know, that, that, that’s what happens when you’re going to break it.

And that’s great because somebody has to break that ground.

Yeah.

You know, to open up, like, you know, what will follow? And that can only improve the market for everyone.

So there, there will always be ground breaking.

You know, we, we were the first people to use walk-all.

And I’m so proud of that.

And now, I had first contacted walk-all and Michel in 2015, like, at the very start of Paleo, but we just couldn’t afford to make the switch.

And I must have an email up to her, like, probably every year, just second hour past this, because I hated using polystyrene.

But we had to ship out.

There wasn’t an alternative.

And I remember when, when they finally came to that site, and we had a meeting, they said that we had been the longest lead, because it had actually been five years.

So, from, from contacting them, to actually, you know, I think, probably, I think probably now we’re one of the biggest, one of their biggest users.

And again, so many followed, you know, so many other pet food companies, followed, which is fantastic for an environment and for the dog food, because it’s, it’s insulating it better than polystyrene.

Definitely, and like you said, just, well, you know, we’ve, with the products themselves, science and research is developing, like, all the time.

Yeah.

So I think that’s why I mean, you inspired me to look on the nutrition side of things.

Yeah.

And, you know, actually looking at research papers and reading them and seeing how people are becoming more aware of the benefits of raw feeding, which is.

Yeah.

I mean, in the, I know that you are two, nearly two years now, almost two years completed, of a very intense, I’m going to say, in the coming part time, nutritional calls, which is so not part time.

And my daughter is doing a similar calls, and it is a absolutely incredible amount of work that goes, you know, that the site, in cycle of period type, reading, so respects.

Thank you.

Because I’m fully aware of how much work goes in.

The detail that I know, the detail that you’re going into in your calls, is incredible.

But reading papers, you know, changing your opinion is, is, is learning, you know, world, but if you, for instance, if you don’t have a dog, if you never went through the experience that you went through and saw how, you know, a diet actually changed your dog’s life.

That’s the most important thing, I think.

It more sadly, in my totally honest opinion, there’s some very qualified human and canine nutritionists out there who totally, totally boo boo raw.

You know, I just can’t make my head round that.

So it is, it is incredible that every species on the planet has evolved on a natural world diet that’s undisputable.

And they’re only ones that eat processed food are humans when they develop to 80 to 100 years ago, and the companion animals that we force it upon.

Now every other species in the entire planet eats a natural world diet.

So how they can be learned people who, you know, refute the facts that a natural world diet is the best for any species.

I mean, mother nature, as, as evolved us over millennia, and none of us would exist, not a single animal insect, anything on the planet would, unless they were eating the diet to which they evolved to eat.

And that’s all we’re trying to emulate for dogs is a diet which they had evolved to eat.

And their internal organs are the same as the DNA.

I think it’s 99.5 or 99.8.

So we have to investigate them.

We’ve changed their outsides.

We’ve made them long, short, you know, tall.

We’ve done all sorts of things, you know, short head, no head, fluffy.

But what we haven’t done is changed their internal organs and that they are metators.

That cannot be disputed.

I’m into that.

Maybe just a last question, is what’s your, what’s your fondest memories of? Oh, my Lord.

I know that’s probably quite hard to get.

Don’t stand over 10 years.

That’s what it’s still making me tear out.

Oh, wow.

I think the thing that I am most grateful for is her be, her be, because, and although it is, you know, ironic that it was, it gets cancer.

And it said that he did.

And it despite Advocance, so he did, lead a very wonderful life and he died two weeks before he was 14.

So he lived another seven years, despite what the, the vet’s cognitive was.

And I do firmly believe that that was because of the vet, if it hadn’t that happened, I could probably still be feeding the most god awful food to my dogs without even given it a second fall.

And that is, that is scary.

That is frightening.

But I think proud moments walking into water bearing will be pick the keys up for that.

Oh, yeah.

First unit was was basic to say the least.

I think the packaging design will be changed like paleo to put the sleeve on it.

That, that looks fantastic.

I’m proud that we continue to strive to offer only a quality product and just not without compromise.

And that makes me happy.

And I know the pain that we felt in many scenarios where it would have been easier to take a different route.

And we haven’t, and that, that makes me really proud because it’s, you know, I stand and put my name behind it.

And I still have to feed it to my dogs.

And knowing that for me it is still, you know, arguably the best quality product is, makes it almost all sweeter, I would say.

And that, you know, that I can’t really ask more than that, really.

That’s really lovely.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Huge thanks to Sharon for a time with Esther right there.

There was lots of emotions at times speaking to Sharon, especially talking about her dogs and the ones that she’s lost over the years.

That never gets any easier.

It never loses his impact to hear about Sharon’s dog Kirby, but certainly the origin story of paleo-rich.

I think a lot of people can identify with this story.

And unfortunately a lot of people come to raw feeding because of health issues with their dog.

And it’s a leap of faith to change a dog’s food, of course.

Not everybody that actually switches to ruin a serity feeds chicken carcasses to their dogs since complete meals are so convenient.

But I think there’s so many of us have now seen the benefits of what a raw dog food diet can do to your dog, the proof is in the pudding, let’s say.

Sorry, again, for the sound quality there, but I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s worth it just to hear from Sharon herself.

In the next episode, you’ll be treated to a conversation between Esther and Jill, our Trade Account Manager, which is an episode around our stockist.

If you’d like to support the podcast, please just share us with your dog parent friends, be the supposed to review, and keep listening.