If you haven’t heard about Dr. Marty yet, I’d be surprised. It’s a vet-designed pet food brand that seems to be suddenly everywhere all at once. So what’s the deal – should you be thinking about a switch? Let’s take a look.
Here’s what Dr. Marty’s says makes their pet food unique:
- ZERO Artificial Preservatives or Additives
- Premium Whole Foods
- Third-Party Tested for Purity & Potency
- Freshly Manufactured in North America
- Minimally processed, not blasted with high heat
- FREE from artificial preservatives and synthetic vitamins and mineral powders
- Made with REAL premium cuts of meat
- dog food formulas range from 79% to 88% premium meat like turkey, beef, salmon, duck, and organ meat
- rather than white potatoes or lentils, for carbohydrates they use prebiotic-rich flaxseed and sweet potatoes
While freeze-drying is not in itself unique, Dr. Marty’s formulas are only available in freeze-dried raw…so though they sometimes refer to their formulas as ‘kibble’ they are really just referring to the bite-sized format, and that’s a little confusing. All formulas are grain-free, and completely uncooked – kind of the opposite of real kibble. Frozen raw but with the water content removed, so it’s shelf-stable and very light to ship or carry.
Here are my thoughts:
- The Nature of Animal Healing by Dr. Martin Goldstein, aka Dr. Marty, was a groundbreaking book when it came out in 2000 (same year we opened btw). It changed the way many pet parents, and vets, looked at not only wellness through whole food nutrition, but also natural food as a critical agent for disease prevention, primarily cancer, and treatment. I read, loved and dog-eared that book endlessly. His follow up, The Spirit of Animal Healing, came out in 2021.
- Ignore the celebrity factor. Dr. Marty is the real deal. Since graduating from Cornell vet school second in his class in 1973, he’s been researching healing and wellness for animals through nutrition. I think his celebrity is a consequence of doing the research, doing what he believes in…and ok, having Martha Steward’s dog Paw Paw as a client sure didn’t hurt.
- The natural pet food industry exploded after the melamine recalls of 2007. It’s significant that Marty didn’t try to capitalize on his celebrity at that time by launching a kibble. There’s no way he could have done that without compromising the principles he advances in his books. Dr. Marty’s pet food, freeze-dried raw pet food formulas only, was launched in 2018.
- Dr. Marty’s pricing for freeze-dried food is about 25% less in the 16oz, and about 40% less in the 48oz than competing brands. That’s a game changer that is bringing lots of pet parents into freeze-dried. And that means that with the brand’s success, a lot more animals are being fed superior nutrition.