The Honest Kitchen - pet food with a passion

The Honest Kitchen Timeline

• 1997: Company Founders Lucy & Charlie Postins arrived in the USA from Britain, filled with optimism at the prospects in this foreign land.
• 2000: Mosi, a Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy, joined the family. He ate the kibbled food made by the pet food company where Lucy worked at that time – but Lucy’s interest in the benefits of home cooked and raw foods for pets, grew day by day. Lucy began making all Mosi’s food herself. The kitchen was covered in pureed broccoli, carrots and various animal parts plus the freezer was bursting at the seams and the homemade meals took forever to prepare! The solution was to remove the moisture form fresh, whole foods to make a compact product that could turn back into 'fresh food' when the water was added.
• 2001: Raw ingredients suppliers began shipping samples to the kitchen of a little house in Pacific Beach, California, to be blended according to various secret recipe combinations. Mosi began consuming dehydrated raw food full time, in the form of the prototype recipe for Verve. The decision was made to offer Mosi’s healthy foods to other local pets. Mosi’s friends began to try it. They liked it lots!
• 2002: A prolonged search for a human food manufacturer who would agree to make this crazy, gourmet food for pets on a commercial scale, paid off. Every ingredient supplier signed an affidavit of assurance that their products were human edible, to allow entry to the manufacturing plant. The web site was set up, and one fine fall morning when the online order system underwent its initial testing, Mosi was stunned to learn that a customer in Maryland had beaten his Mummy to it, and placed an order for Verve before the test order was even completed! The first production batch of Verve was 2000 lbs. Soon, it was almost sold out.
• 2003: Each batch produced was a little larger than the one before. Many of the customers who ordered in those early times are still valued clients to this day. That’s something that makes us really jolly proud. The people had spoken. They wanted a diet like Verve but without the grains and Force was borne (once Mosi had given his seal of approval).
• 2004: Embark was developed and introduced.  Now puppies could eat The Honest Kitchen and many dogs could begin life without ever having to consume a pellet of kibble! Lucy & Charlie’s first daughter was borne and the first employee Laurette and her Dalmatian (another Charlie) were hired – and they're still with us!
• 2005: The Honest Kitchen launched its first cat food, Prowl, as well as Preference, a dehydrated foundation diet for dogs – just veggies, fruit and nothing else. The Federal FDA provided a formal statement of no objection to The Honest Kitchen, permitting the company to use the term “Human Grade” on its product labels. Rescued from Northern California and brought to San Diego by THK staff, first class, on a plane - Harry the cat joined the team.
• 2006: Thrive was launched, by popular demand. Nuzzles duck and cherry cookies also started rolling off the production line and into kitchens everywhere. More staff were added to help keep up with demand. The average blend was now 20,000 lbs.
• 2007: A legal battle with the department of agriculture began with that agency refused to grant The Honest Kitchen a license to sell its products in their state. The department argued that the term ‘human-grade’ on the product labels might prove confusing to customers who would be unable to determine if the products were for their pets or themselves. The company sued and won. Now people in that state could just go to a local store to buy the food, rather than drive over state lines or have it shipped to friends for pickup! The company launched its new eco-friendly packaging solution. Just one way of making a commitment to the earth that provides us all those healthy raw ingredients.
• 2008: Keen was launched, along with Pecks, buffalo and blueberry cookies. Eleven human and seven canine employees now help to keep things running smoothly at THK. Meetings at the local dog parks, a sense of doing a little something to make pets’ lives better everywhere – and taste tests galore – make life in our Kitchen just a little bit different than the usual run-of-the-mill place of work.
• 2009: Production runs now exceed 100,000 lbs. We have made our debut on Food Network's hit show Will work for Food, and we're working hard to source some exciting new raw ingredients for this year's product launches.
• 2010: Our Wishes pure fish jerky treats was launched- a treat for dogs and cats made from 100% dehydrated wild, line caught Icelandic Haddock. Zeal, our first complete fish recipe was released this year; made exclusively with wild caught, human-grade fish. We also released our first recipe book, Made out of Love, with recipes you can prepare for, and share with, your animal companions.
• 2011: Now 16 employees strong (not counting our ten office dogs) we took on a minority investment to raise capital that would allow us to hire new staff and expand our marketing and sales outreach. We re-designed our boxes, upgrading to c combination of recycled and SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) kraft. Two brand new diets also hit store shelves: Love (a grain free beef recipe for dogs) and Grace (a grain-free turkey recipe for cats).