Pet food good enough for humans to take a bite of
As pet parents seek the best for their dogs, they are buying ‘human-grade’ food that looks like a meal they would eat
Unlike other two-year-olds, Timtim loves broccoli and peas. He starts the day with two boiled eggs, each stuffed with a broccoli floret. His dinner includes a portion of boiled peas. “If my baby doesn’t see the greens, he won’t eat,” laughs Delhi-based software engineer Saurabh Khurana.
When Khurana, 35, adopted Timtim, a Retriever, from an animal shelter in 2022, he was clear that he wanted to feed him nutrient-rich, freshly cooked food. So, he would wake up at 5am and, with the help of his wife, prepare Timtim’s food—a combination of chicken, rice and vegetables. But combined with office workload, it was an exhausting drill.
Early last year, Khurana started to look for brands that serve healthy pet food with “human-grade” ingredients, or made in accordance with regulations for ready-toeat human food products. Today, Khurana depends on three platforms to deliver food for his dog—sometimes, it is pork and lentils; often, rice, chicken and vegetables, including peas. The food resembles, even almost tastes like, what humans would eat.
“I have tasted all the food that I have ordered. It’s like what we eat, minus the salt and masala,” says Khurana, who spends ₹15,000 on pet food every month, about 10% more compared to when he used to cook at home for Timtim. The dog seems to have adjusted well to the “outside food”. “Why should he eat stinky, packaged food (referring to kibble), when I can afford to give him food that looks like food and keeps him healthy?” says Khurana.
As millennials and Gen Zers reimagine the idea of parenthood, they are ready to spend more time and effort to ensure their beloved pets eat nutritious food, even if it means shelling out more money. Several startups and brands are banking on this visceral urge. From gluten-free to vegan and vegetarian diets, the Indian market is slowly and steadily seeing a rise in pet food that’s seemingly less processed and, in some cases, more closely resembling human food.
According to Statista, the 2024 revenue in the pet food market in India amounts to $640 million (around ₹5,300 crore). It is expected to grow annually by 12.63%, hitting $1.03 billion in the next four years. Globally, the most revenue is generated in the US (over $57 billion in 2023).
While there’s no official data on the growth of “human-grade” pet food in India, a quick search online and in retail stores for bespoke and “holistic” options is enough to give an idea of how serious people are becoming about the wellness of their pets. “Being a pet parent is different from being a human parent. When you are a pet parent, you know that unless something untoward happens, you will outlive your pet,” says Ishmeet Singh Chandiok, a pet parent and chef who has done stints at Hyatt and JW Mariott. He’s the founder of Harley’s Corner, a ready-to-eat premium dog food brand that claims to use human-grade ingredients and zero preservatives to create meals.
Among the dishes Harley’s offers are Goulash (₹625 for 900g; to give an idea, a 30kg dog needs 360-450g a meal), a lowfat meal that comprises a blend of sorghum millet, pumpkin seeds, brewer’s yeast, sweet potato, chicken, brown rice, cod liver oil, wheat germ oil, vegetables, algae calcium and seaweed powder; and Wooferole (₹800 for 900gm), a “full dietary meal” that combines fish, brown rice, quinoa, pumpkin, algae calcium, and vegetables. My dog and I tried the Goulash. It looked and tasted like chicken khichdi, without salt and spices. My dog finished it in seconds.
“By just changing the food, if I can have my dog live even a year longer, it would be priceless,” says Singh. “This kind of belief is driving the interest in human-grade pet food, besides growing awareness in general around wellness and what you yourself eat and feed your pet.”
Human-grade pet food, in simple words, means food fit enough for human consumption. “Humans can eat it but it’s not recommended since pet food has added vitamins, minerals and supplements that are more suitable for animals,” says Shivangi Raina, a Bengaluru-based veterinarian.
“Companies follow the most stringent rules and regulations when it comes to human food. So, when you claim that you are offering human-grade pet food, it means there’s reduced risk of contamination and better nutrients,” says Raina, who is the product executive manager at Drools Pet Food, a company that offers human-grade food with claims that “real chicken, liver, and eggs keep them (dogs) active, while natural ingredients promote healthy skin and coat”.
A HUMAN LENS
Gone are the days when dogs were only seen as house guards and fed kitchen scraps and kibble made with surplus meats and anything from feet to feathers.
“The pandemic might have accelerated the trend (of ‘humanisation’ of animals), but it’s something that started about a decade ago, when the functionality factor (dogs being house guards) moved to the emotional factor. Animals are no longer just animals,” says Vineet Khanna, co-founder of Supertails, a pet care platform that offers everything from food and clothing to accessories and vet consultations. In 2022, Supertails launched its pet food brand, Henlo, which offers baked food for dogs. The kibble-like offering comes attached with claims of “100% human-grade ingredients” and no use of artificial preservatives, fillers or chemicals. “We are following the slow-cooking process to ensure the flavours and nutrients are well preserved,” says Khanna.
Delayed marriage, later pregnancy, loneliness and increasing stress levels are some of the reasons more people are turning pet parents, and “in many cases, it is their first big responsibility in life, so they want to ensure the best of everything for them,” Khanna says, while explaining the idea behind Henlo.
None of the brands—Harley’s Corner, Supertails and Drools—wished to share revenue figures, though they said they are in expansion mode. Henlo, for instance, is adding more chicken items with flavours like pumpkin and pomegranate. Harley’s is looking to increase options for treats and other chewables. The brands did say that a large section of the clients were in the 18-35 age and from metro cities, with orders trickling in from tier I and II cities like Coonoor, Shillong and Mysuru.
One of the gaps in the market the Supertails team came across was that many people did not like the smell of packaged food for pets. Khanna says they factored this in, so that the food tastes and smells good.
There are, however, no rules when it comes to “human-grade” pet food. “In India, compliance with the pet food standards set by the Bureau of Indian Standards is voluntary,” says Salil Murthy, managing director, Mars Petcare, an 80-year-old American brand that has been in India for two decades. “There is significant opportunity for us to collaborate with the government and industry peers to push for these standards to become mandatory. It is crucial to standardise certain nutrients and their quantities using a scientific rationale. Standardisation would curb the spread of misleading information.”
For now, Khurana is happy to feed Timtim food that resembles what is on his own plate. “It’s not like I am blindly following what the companies are claiming. I am doing my research and seeing the impact it has,” he says. “Timtim is our child. I know what’s best for him.”
Dev Patel’s film starts with a mother telling her son the story of Hanuman and ends with a prayer to the monkey god. In between, there’s a lot more Hanuman, as well as references to Shiva, Parvati and Ram. The film’s antagonists appropriate Hinduism for their evil purposes. The protagonists are devout, steeped in mythology, true believers. It’s a neat enough formulation, yet one that marks Monkey Man out as a film about India that’s neither written nor directed by resident Indians. As anyone living here will tell you, it’s fantasy to think you can out-flank the religious right.
In his first film as director, Patel plays an unnamed brawler (credited as “Kid”) who wears a monkey mask and gets knocked around in underground prize fights. His only desire is to somehow get to corrupt chief of police Rana Singh (Sikandar Kher). In a series of flashbacks—each with a little more detail—we see that Rana was responsible for the death of his mother years ago. Monkey Man takes most of its cues from East Asian action cinema, but there might be a strand of Bollywood in its DNA. An intense young man haunted by memories of his parent’s demise, a murder glimpsed in hiding, a piece of jewellery on the killer’s person stuck in his head—these are images straight out of Zanjeer (1973).
Kid finds an opening in a swanky club that offers drugs and women to the elite of Yatana, a fictitious Mumbai-like city. He’s befriended by drug-runner Alphonso (Pitobash), who shows him the ins and outs of the establishment, including where to find Rana. You can see the influence of the groundbreaking Thai martial arts film Ong-Bak. Kid is an underground boxer and originally from a village, just like Tony Jaa in the 2003 film; Pitobash fulfils a similar comic sidekick role to Mum Jokemok. Patel makes the debt concrete with a recreation of a famous moment from that film—a single lethal kick that shuts up a partisan crowd.
Once it became known that Monkey Man had an embattled Hanuman, an escort named Sita (Sobhita Dhulipala), and a Hindu priest for a villain, it was all too clear it wasn’t going to play in Indian cinemas (officially, it’s yet to be examined by the censor board). It seems unlikely any streaming platform here will pick it up either. Is the film as politically explosive as all this suggests? That depends on the degree of specificity you are expecting. Certainly, the film is a cracked reflection of the country today. Everyone’s gearing up for elections, with the right-leaning “Sovereign Party”, aided by the powerful godman Shakti Baba (Makarand Deshpande), expected to win. News reports show minorities being targeted. One montage ends with a shouted “Bharat mata ki jai” accompanied by images of floggings and lynchings.
This is more than any Hindi film today would get away with. Yet, the political situation in Monkey Man (written by Patel, Paul Angunawela and John Collee) is only tangentially connected to its action. Kid and his mother have their land seized with the help of state authorities—not something unique to this moment in time. Muslims are shown on the news as victims of violence, but there are no Muslim characters in the film. Rana and Shakti Baba are archetypal Indian villains who could exist anytime in the cinema of the last 25 years (had Baba been a minister rather than an enabler, it might have been more pointed).
You might say this is more political engagement than a pulpy action film need show. That’s probably true—and yet, having ventured on to this particular branch, I’d have liked it if the makers of Monkey
had tested its strength. Consider the 2022 Tamil film Natchathiram Nagargiradhu.
Its deux ex machina villain is a clean-cut upper-caste goon who turns up at a play by a liberal, intercaste, intersectional theatre troupe and proceeds to terrorise everyone, leaping about in simian fashion, attacking the players with a mace and setting fire to the stage. It’s difficult not to see this rampage as a warped Lanka dahan and the character as a manifestation of those “Angry Hanuman” stickers that became so popular in the aughts.
Despite its limitations, Monkey Man isa cracking action film. Patel, who’s trained in taekwondo, cuts a ripped, seething figure as he dispatches dozens of goons in his quest to reach final boss Rana (Kher enjoying himself). John Wick is name-checked, but the action, choreographed by Brahim Chab, is scuzzier and less fluent than the
Keanu Reeves series. One 13-minute sequence takes in a savage bathroom brawl, a mad auto chase and a messy fight in a brothel. My favourite bit comes in a later sequence—the 30-odd seconds where Kid takes out a bunch of security guys in the kitchen, Sharone Meir’s camera swivelling and pirouetting to catch the action.
Patel takes one wild swing. A battered Kid is taken in by a hijra commune, who heal and prepare him for future battles. For some reason, tabla maestro Zakir Husain is also hanging around. In the training montage that follows, Kid pummels the bag as Husain responds in time with taps of the tabla. It’s both endearing and faintly ridiculous. Imagine John Wick doing target practice as Itzhak Perlman plays in the corner.
In 2008, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire propelled Patel to stardom and established a certain idea of modern urban India for Western audiences. Monkey Man has the same frenetic style, but then so do a lot of recent Indian films. Patel has room to grow and figure how to make his set pieces pop; too many scenes are a blur of similar solid colours and frantic movements. But he clearly has affection for the genre, and concerns about his ancestral country. Monkey Man doesn’t have as much to say about India as one might have hoped. But the pointedness of its anger is unmistakable.