From table scraps and slaughterhouse waste to a $50 billion industry — how James Spratt's 1860 dog biscuit changed what we feed our animals forever
For most of human history, pet feeding was an afterthought. Working dogs on farms ate slaughterhouse waste — intestines, lungs, blood — along with whatever scraps fell from the table. Urban dogs in Victorian London scavenged from gutters and received stale bread soaked in drippings. The concept of a food specifically designed for a dog's nutritional needs did not exist. Animals ate what was available, and their owners expected them to manage.
This began to change in 1860, and the catalyst was an American electrician named James Spratt.
Spratt had traveled to London to sell lightning conductors. According to the most widely cited account, he witnessed dock workers feeding stale hardtack biscuits — the same ship's biscuit that had sustained naval crews for centuries — to stray dogs near the Thames. Whether this moment of observation was the true origin or a marketing story polished by later generations, the result was real: in 1860, Spratt patented and began selling his "Meat Fibrine Dog Cakes" in Britain.
The biscuits were made from a mixture of wheat meal, vegetables, beetroot, and dried unsalted beef blood. They were expensive, marketed explicitly to the English sporting gentleman class, and positioned as scientific nutrition rather than mere food. Spratt understood something no one had formalized before: that a product commanding premium pricing needed a story about health, not just convenience.
By the 1870s, Spratt had expanded operations to New York, setting up production facilities in Newark, New Jersey. His American operation grew into a significant business, eventually acquired by General Mills in 1950. The Spratt's brand continued in the UK until the 1990s.
The First World War produced an unexpected consequence for the pet food industry: millions of surplus horses. With mechanized transport replacing cavalry, the United States alone had vast numbers of horses with no economic purpose. Slaughterhouses processed them, and canneries had a cheap, abundant protein source.
In 1922, Chappie launched in Britain using horsemeat as its primary ingredient — a fact advertised openly for decades. In the United States, Ken-L Ration appeared in 1922, also horse-based, and became the first canned dog food sold nationally. By the late 1920s, canned pet food was a legitimate American industry. The Great Depression accelerated adoption: canned horsemeat dog food was cheaper per calorie than feeding a dog table scraps from a household struggling to feed itself.
Cats received commercial food later. Puss 'n Boots launched in 1934, and the pattern of using whatever protein surplus was cheapest — fish processing byproducts, poultry offal — defined the early cat food market.
Gaines Meal introduced dry dog food in the early 1940s, driven partly by wartime metal rationing that made canned food impractical. Dry food was cheaper to produce, easier to store, and had a longer shelf life — practical advantages that appealed to the postwar middle class expanding into suburban homes with dogs.
But the transformation of pet food from cheap commodity to nutritional science came from Paul Iams. In 1946, Iams — a salesman with a passion for animal nutrition — founded a small company in Dayton, Ohio. His breakthrough insight was simple but radical for its time: dogs needed protein from animal sources, not grain fillers. He formulated his food around chicken and named his company after himself. The Iams Company grew slowly for decades, acquired by Procter & Gamble in 1999 for $2.3 billion.
The other foundational figure was Mark Morris Sr., a veterinarian in New Jersey. In 1948, Morris was asked to help a guide dog named Buddy — the same Buddy who had become famous as one of the first guide dogs trained in America — who was suffering from kidney disease. Morris developed a low-protein, low-phosphorus prescription diet specifically for Buddy. He partnered with the Hill Packing Company in Topeka, Kansas, to produce the formula commercially. The result was Hill's Prescription Diet, the first veterinary therapeutic food — and the beginning of Hill's Pet Nutrition, still the largest prescription pet food company in the world.
By the 1980s and 1990s, pet food had followed the same premiumization trend as human food. Brands positioned around "holistic" ingredients, limited ingredient diets, and ancestral nutrition began appearing. The raw food movement, popularized in part by veterinarian Ian Billinghurst's 1993 book Give Your Dog a Bone, argued that dogs should eat what their evolutionary ancestors ate — raw meat, bones, and organs. The movement gained a devoted following despite consistent warnings from the American Veterinary Medical Association about Salmonella and E. coli risks from raw diets.
The grain-free trend followed a similar arc. Brands like Blue Buffalo, Merrick, and Taste of the Wild built significant market share in the 2010s by positioning grain-free diets as more natural and nutritious. In 2018, the FDA opened an investigation into a potential link between grain-free diets and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) — a serious heart condition — in dogs. The investigation, which examined over 500 reports between 2014 and 2020, identified legume-heavy diets (peas, lentils, chickpeas as primary ingredients) as the strongest signal. No definitive causal mechanism was proven by the time the FDA closed its active investigation in 2022-2023, but the controversy permanently altered how nutritionists evaluate ingredient substitutions.
The American Pet Products Association reported that US pet food and treats sales reached approximately $50 billion in 2024. The global market is estimated at over $100 billion. What James Spratt began with a biscuit sold to English gentlemen has become one of the most competitive segments of the consumer packaged goods industry, with multinationals like Nestlé Purina, Mars Petcare, and Hill's operating alongside thousands of independent brands competing on ingredient sourcing, ethical production claims, and veterinary endorsement.
For a history of what modern dog breeds actually need nutritionally, explore our dog care guides. If you want to know more about how specific breeds evolved, the dog breed quiz offers a window into canine history. The journey from Thames-side hardtack to cold-pressed organic kibble is, at its core, a story about how much we've decided to care — and how much we're willing to spend on that caring.
When was commercial pet food invented? The first commercial pet food was James Spratt's Patent Meat Fibrine Dog Cakes, introduced in London in 1860. Before that, dogs and cats ate table scraps, raw bones, and slaughterhouse waste.
Why did early commercial dog food use horsemeat? After World War I, millions of military horses became surplus as mechanized transport replaced cavalry. Horsemeat was extremely cheap and abundant, making it economical for early brands like Ken-L Ration (1922) and Chappie (1922) to use as their primary protein source.
What is the connection between Hill's Science Diet and a guide dog? Veterinarian Mark Morris Sr. developed the first therapeutic pet diet in 1948 specifically for Buddy, a famous guide dog suffering from kidney disease. He partnered with Hill Packing Company to produce the low-protein formula commercially, founding what became Hill's Pet Nutrition.
Is grain-free dog food dangerous? The FDA investigated a potential link between grain-free, legume-heavy diets and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) in dogs between 2018 and 2023. No definitive causal mechanism was confirmed, but most veterinary nutritionists recommend consulting your vet before choosing a grain-free diet, particularly for breeds with known cardiac predispositions.