My start-up: Butternut Box
Butternut Box is the UK’s first fresh, home-cooked dog food delivery business.
Butternut Box is the UK’s first fresh, home-cooked dog food delivery business. Here co-founders, Kevin Glynn and David Nolan, share the motivations and working life behind the caring brand that makes food safe for our beloved pets.
Can you describe Butternut Box and how it operates?
Kevin Glynn: We make our meals with fresh ingredients that are specific to each dog based on their sex, breed, age and size. Being transparent about our meals and what goes into them is a big part of what we do–poor regulations around what you need to print on pet food labels means that pet parents are mostly kept in the dark about what their dog is really eating. We’re changing that by providing the real food and honesty that dogs deserve.
Tell us a little bit about the background of your business–how the idea came about, and how you got started.
David Nolan: It all started seven years ago with Rudy, a staffie that my family brought home from Battersea Dogs Home. She was initially called Snowy but because of her awful wind she was renamed Rudy which was definitely more appropriate! After countless visits to the vets we realised that Rudy’s over-processed food was the problem so we started to cook for Rudy ourselves. Research showed that we weren’t the only ones struggling to find the right food for our dog. I teamed up with Kevin (we were working together at the time) to start the company, which we launched in April 2016.
What was your first year like?
KG: Hectic! There was a lot of graft, weekend work and late nights to get the business off the ground. The kitchen was our number one spot to hang out as we cooked the first 500,000 meals ourselves. We loved every minute of it and given we did everything ourselves we knew every single part of our business, which has been crucial for us now.
To read the full interview with Butternut Box, order Issue no. 3 of ALHAUS magazine, available now.