Open-Source Pet Food: Why We Publish Our Recipes (and What 'Transparency' Should Actually Mean)

Open the bag of any "premium" pet food in Singapore. The label says "real chicken." It says "human-grade ingredients." It says "PhD formulated." What it doesn't say is the bit that actually matters: how much of each thing is in there, and why.

We do it differently. Every Bon Pet recipe is published in full. Ratios, ingredients, supplements, gram by gram, on a public Google Sheet that anyone can open and read.

This post is the long answer to the question we get whenever we mention this: "Why would you give away your recipes? Won't competitors just copy you?"

Here's the honest take.

What "transparency" usually means in pet food (spoiler: not much)

If you look across the SG fresh-pet-food market, almost every brand uses the word "transparent." Most of what passes for transparency is actually one of these:

• Named ingredients without ratios. "Free-range chicken, sweet potato, fish oil." Nice. Is it 5% chicken or 70%? You won't know.
• "Premium meat blend" or "muscle and organ blend." Industry shorthand. Means: we won't tell you what's in this.
• "Vet-formulated" with no name. Which vet? At what credential level? Companion animal nutrition is a sub-specialty (DACVN, PhD in animal nutrition). "A vet looked at it" is not the same as "a board-certified veterinary nutritionist designed it."
• "AAFCO compliant" without showing the math. AAFCO All Life Stages requires hitting nutrient minimums. A label can say "AAFCO compliant" without you ever seeing the actual nutrient targets or how the recipe meets them.

None of this is fraud. It's just marketing-grade transparency. The bar is "we used real words." The bar is not "you can verify what we said."

What we publish

Every recipe lives on this public Google Sheet (no login required, exportable as CSV):

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MmEgWyF-GbnkA6RP9WqD69mmV-luKXb0jpFxTgqygYE

For every recipe (chicken, beef, kangaroo, duck, pork, fish; cat and dog versions), the sheet shows:

• ✅ Ingredient list with grams per kilo. 700g chicken muscle, 100g chicken liver, 50g chicken heart, etc.
• ✅ Veg + fruit ratios (dog formulas only): sweet potato, zucchini, beetroot, blueberries, in grams.
• ✅ Supplement breakdown. Calcium, taurine, vitamin E, fish oil, glucosamine, in milligrams.
• ✅ Macro split. Protein %, fat %, carb %, fibre %, moisture %.
• ✅ AAFCO target overlay. What the All Life Stages minimums are, and where each nutrient lands relative to that.
• ✅ Sourcing notes. Where the chicken comes from (Kee Song, halal-certified). Where the kangaroo is imported from. Where the fish oil is sourced.

It's the same document our PhD nutritionist works in. We just made it public.

Inside one recipe: chicken for cats (the simplest one)

Let's walk through one. The 200g chicken cat formula, the cleanest example.

Per 1kg of finished product:

• Chicken muscle (breast + thigh): 700g. Around 70% of the recipe. Free-range, halal-certified, locally sourced from Kee Song.
• Chicken heart: 100g (10%). Naturally rich in taurine, the amino acid cats can't make. Cooking destroys synthetic taurine; whole-organ taurine is more bioavailable.
• Chicken liver: 80g (8%). Vitamin A, B12, copper, iron. Cats convert beta-carotene poorly, so they need preformed vitamin A from animal sources.
• Chicken kidney: 50g (5%). Selenium, B-vitamins, more taurine.
• Egg yolk: 20g (2%). Choline, lecithin, fat-soluble vitamins.
• Supplement blend: 50g (5%). Calcium carbonate (skeletal), taurine top-up (for AAFCO compliance), vitamin E (antioxidant, omega-3 protection), fish oil (EPA + DHA), iodised salt (for thyroid), and a trace mineral premix (zinc, iron, copper).

That's it. Six ingredient categories, every one accounted for, every one with a reason.

For comparison, here's what a "premium" kibble label often looks like:

Chicken meal, brown rice, oat groats, chicken fat (preserved with mixed tocopherols), pea protein, dried tomato pomace, natural flavour, salt, potassium chloride, choline chloride, taurine, mixed tocopherols (a preservative), vitamins...

Twelve ingredients, no quantities. "Chicken meal" could be 8% or 35%. The carbohydrates (rice, oats, pea protein) almost certainly outweigh the chicken, but you can't tell. That's the design.

"Won't competitors copy you?"

This is the question people ask first. Honest answer: probably, eventually, partially. We don't think it matters.

What's actually hard about pet food isn't the recipe. It's:

• Sourcing consistent, human-grade meat at scale (we've spent two years building relationships with Kee Song and our kangaroo importer)
• Running a Pioneer Crescent kitchen to SFA hygiene standards while keeping unit costs sane
• Cold-chain delivery across SG (NinjaVan partnership)
• The PhD nutrition consultant who keeps every batch within AAFCO targets
• The customer trust that took 600+ buyers to build

None of that is in the spreadsheet. The recipe is the easy part. If a competitor sees our 700g/100g/80g chicken split and tries to clone it, we wish them well, and they'll still need to figure out the other stuff.

Why open-source is actually good business (not just feel-good)

Three concrete reasons publishing helps us:

1. It forces honesty inside the team. If we know every gram is going to be public, we can't quietly cheap out on chicken liver one batch because supply got tight. The spreadsheet keeps us aligned with what we said we'd do.

2. It changes how customers ask questions. Sensitive-pet pawrents come to us with very specific asks ("can you reduce the beetroot?", "my cat is on a low-iodine vet diet, what's your iodine level?"). Because the data is public, we can answer in 60 seconds instead of going through five emails. Trust is faster than persuasion.

3. It makes referrals stickier. A subscriber who sends our spreadsheet to their dog-owner friend is doing a much better sales pitch than we ever could. "Look, here's the recipe" lands different from "trust me, it's good."

How to read any pet food label (open-source ours or not)

If you take one practical thing from this post, take this. Three checks for any pet food, including ours:

1. The first ingredient. By law, ingredients are listed by weight. The first ingredient should be a named, single-source protein (not "meat meal", not "by-product"). "Chicken" beats "chicken meal" beats "poultry by-product".

2. The carb ratio. Most kibble is 30-50% carbs by dry matter. For cats, anything above 10-15% is biologically inappropriate (obligate carnivores). For dogs, low-to-moderate carb is fine, but high carb means low protein. Look for "metabolisable energy" or guaranteed analysis on the label.

3. The supplement transparency. "Vitamins, minerals, taurine" tells you nothing. "Calcium carbonate (4mg/g), taurine (2.5mg/g), vitamin E (50 IU/kg)" tells you exactly what's been added and how much. The second one is what you want.

Use those three on every label, our packs included. We'd rather you understand what you're feeding than blindly trust us.

Who actually formulates our food

Every recipe is designed and reviewed by a PhD-credentialled animal nutritionist (named on the spreadsheet, with credential check). Recipes target AAFCO All Life Stages: the broadest nutrient profile, covering puppies, kittens, adults, and seniors in one formulation. No separate "growth" line, no separate "senior" line. The math has to work for every life stage in the same recipe.

If you ever want to go deep on the science, the spreadsheet has a "FAQ + nutrition notes" tab where we walk through the rationale on calcium-to-phosphorus ratios, omega-6:omega-3 balance, and why we don't add ash beyond what's naturally in whole-animal protein.

FAQ

Q: Are you really telling me your competitors can just copy this?

Yes, on paper. In practice, the recipe is the easy 10%. The other 90% is sourcing, kitchen ops, delivery, customer trust. We're betting that trust compounds faster than copying.

Q: How do I actually read your spreadsheet?

Open the link, scroll to the tab for the recipe you want (e.g., "Cat Chicken 200g"). Each row is one ingredient with a gram weight per kilo of finished product. Adjusting for the 200g pack: divide everything by 5.

Q: Does the recipe ever change?

Yes, but rarely and only for nutrition reasons. Every change goes through the PhD nutritionist, gets re-checked against AAFCO targets, and is logged on the sheet with a date. We don't quietly substitute ingredients.

Q: Can I make this myself at home?

Yes, in principle. Most home-cooked pet food fails AAFCO compliance because supplements and ratios are tricky. A 2013 UC Davis study found 95% of online pet food recipes were nutritionally inadequate. If you've got a vet nutritionist, a precise scale, and the patience to source organ meat in the right ratios, go for it. For most pawrents, it's easier (and cheaper, when you factor in time and supplements) to outsource the cooking.

Q: Is this PhD-formulated or just AAFCO-compliant?

Both. AAFCO All Life Stages compliance is the floor. PhD-led formulation is what gets each recipe optimised within that floor (e.g., omega-6:omega-3 ratio, taurine bioavailability from whole-organ vs synthetic). The credential is on the spreadsheet, verifiable.

Want to try one of the recipes you just read about?

The fastest way is one of our mix trial packs. You see the spreadsheet entry, you taste the actual food. Same recipe, transparent both ways.

Subscribe and save 10% ongoing. Pause or cancel anytime. The recipes don't change behind your back.

Or, if you want to read the spreadsheet for an hour first and decide later, that's the most on-brand thing you can do. Here it is again. 🐾

❤️ The Bon Pet team

Frequently asked questions

Where can I see The Bon Pet's full recipes?

Every recipe lives on a public Google Sheet (no login needed, exportable as CSV) at docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MmEgWyF-GbnkA6RP9WqD69mmV-luKXb0jpFxTgqygYE. It's the same working document our PhD nutritionist uses, showing grams per kilo for every ingredient and supplement across all chicken, beef, kangaroo, duck, pork, and fish formulas.

Why don't most pet food brands show ingredient ratios?

Because the ratios usually reveal that cheaper fillers (rice, oats, pea protein) outweigh the named meat. A label saying 'chicken meal, brown rice, oat groats' could be 8% chicken or 35% chicken, and you can't tell. That ambiguity is the design, not an accident.

Isn't The Bon Pet worried competitors will copy the recipes?

Not really. The recipe isn't the hard part. The hard parts are sourcing consistent human-grade meat (two years building the Kee Song relationship), running a SFA-compliant kitchen at Pioneer Crescent, cold-chain delivery via NinjaVan, the PhD nutrition consultant, and the trust built with 600+ pawrents.

What does 'AAFCO compliant' actually mean on a pet food label?

AAFCO All Life Stages compliance means the recipe hits minimum nutrient targets for protein, fat, taurine, calcium, and so on. But brands can claim compliance without ever showing you the math. Our public sheet overlays the AAFCO minimums against where each nutrient in our recipe actually lands, so you can check it yourself.