Nested relationships and the spatially distanced consumer in alternative pet food movements

Abstract

Marketing ‘sustainable and humane’ super-premium dog kibble emerged alongside alternative food movements interested in sustainability, transparency, and welfare. To demonstrate the trends and implications of the alternative pet food movement, I selected Open Farm for a case study. Open Farm was the first certified humane and sustainable dog food on the market with a ‘transparent’ supply chain. Through interviews, autoethnography, and semiotic analysis, I demonstrate that certification represents a series of nested relationships in the dog food supply chain, from the dog through to the nonhumans used as ingredients. With the transparency tool, these relationships are commodified to increase the exchange value of the product. The added premium is meant to signal an intimate and improved food system, but I argue that the certification and representation of these specific relationships obscures the industrial scale of alternative pet foods and the consequential impact for humans and nonhumans within food systems. This research contributes to food and animal geographies by applying alternative food literature to the alternative pet food industry, and by researching a novel intersection in pet-farmed animal-human relationships: the pet store.