Post #422007 by Petropics on Wed, Dec 3, 2008 12:58 PM

Aloha!

I joined Tiki Central over two years ago, and was just made aware of this string regarding our Tiki Dog and Tiki Cat food. My husband and I have loved anything Tiki since our childhood and started this business in the summer of 2005.

We are animal lovers and came across a human cannery that only handles human grade ingredients. We realized we could offer a human quality, safe food that people could eat themselves and an alternative to the RAW foods diets that are offered in the ultra-natural pet food world as an easier feeding approach with the same philosophy. In addition, as “fisharians” ourselves, we are on a vegetarian and seafood only diet and very concerned about protecting the oceans from over fishing and unethical practices - and our manufacturing partners are able to meet these concerns.

I must say, I am disappointed in some of the negative critique by some of the forum members. I would think that those in the Tiki Family would respect one another enough to ask the questions before passing such negative judgment. We have never revealed our overseas partner because we cannot afford to have a giant manufacturer to find out and buy us out of our source. We have posted the details of our strictly run operation on our website at http://www.petropics.com/AboutOurFoods.pdf and I am writing to clear up some of the misinformation for readers.

We only use wild caught seafood sources.

We only use short line to catch our tuna’s. The premium cuts from the tuna are sent to restaurants and the red meat or blood line portions are used in our Tiki Dog and Tiki Cat Food.

Because our tuna is a shallow water swimmer, there are little to no concerns regarding mercury levels. We offer a variety of foods for our dogs and cats to allow a pet parent to rotate their meals as we do for ourselves.

We observe the Monterey Bay Aquarium recommendations. We believe that pet parents should feed food products under the same food safety and ethical practices as for themselves.

Our tiger prawns are baby prawns, wild and trap caught and little value on the human market. We take the baby prawns from the normal catch and use it in our foods. This product would otherwise be thrown out or used for chum. We find it to be a fun way of adding variety to our foods.

We provide sustainable food products including tuna, sardines, mackerel, wild white salmon, and poultry. Our produce is natural, local grown ingredients. Our poultry is grain fed, free range, and human grade.

We don’t claim to be the low price leader in natural foods. Our market price is in sync with the human market price per ounce, like our raw foods counterparts. We are offering a real, whole food diet that you could eat out of the can yourself.

We are very committed to the environment. Our operations practices concentrate on recyclable materials, minimum transit, and green practices wherever possible. Our whole mission behind our product line was to offer a real food alternative without compromise in content or operation.

We understood the competition in the marketplace was intense and we also believed our love for Tiki could be well communicated and received by any market demographic in the world. Everyone loves the idea of paradise lost!
My husband has a film and art degree, he is the artist that designed all our packaging and marketing materials. We wanted to create a tribal theme where dogs and cats have their own Tiki Dog and Tiki Cat carvings and environment. We wanted to capture the idea that our Tiki Cat’s and Tiki Dog’s had a hand in the recipe’s, that this is food developed by them for their own pleasure. Our color and mood behind our products has captured an incredible audience of loyal Tiki pet parents who may have tried it for the first time just because they love to say “Tiki” and loved the characters, but returned because their pets frantically licked their plates clean.

Together we run our privately owned business, we like to operate out of the box in our industry, and we enjoy providing products that are wildly unique in our market that also stand above the rest in content. We have become famous for our palatability, commitment to quality, and are considered to be the most fun product line in the pet food market. In fact, more testimonials have been written about our foods, on the web, meeting special diet requirements and nursing cats back to health than any other natural food.

Mahalo!