Dragons Backed the Dog Food Revolution

There’s a quiet revolution happening in pet bowls across the UK. And it didn’t start in Parliament, or on the streets, or even in the vet’s office, it started in Dragons’ Den.

Omni, a vet-founded vegan dog food brand, stepped into the spotlight with a bold pitch: nutritionally complete, allergy-friendly, plant-based food for dogs. What followed wasn’t just an investment, it was a cultural moment. 20,000 new customers. A 130% sales surge. £10 million in revenue. And a lot of uncomfortable questions for an industry built on the assumption that feeding flesh to dogs is normal, necessary, and harmless.

Companion Animals, Commodity Diets

Pet food doesn’t just use scraps. It props up an entire industry of breeding, killing, and dismembering. Research shows just a quarter of animal byproducts in high-income countries end up in pet food, and those byproducts aren’t waste, they’re profit. Cow byproducts alone account for over 11% of the industry’s revenue. In other words, every bag of “meaty chunks” helps bankroll the next slaughter.

And the environmental cost? Catastrophic. In Japan, the diet of a medium-sized dog creates more environmental damage than the average human diet. In the US, pet food accounts for up to 30% of the environmental footprint of livestock farming. Globally, switching all dogs to plantbased food could save more land than the size of Mexico. For cats, we’re talking Germany. That’s not a tweak. That’s a transformation.

Enter Omni

Omni wasn’t created in a boardroom by branding execs chasing a trend. It was founded by two men, one a vet, who saw the harm behind conventional dog food and decided to do something about it. Their appearance on Dragons’ Den didn’t just showcase their business. It forced the public to confront a truth they’ve been groomed to ignore: feeding animals to animals isn’t necessary. 

And clearly, the message resonated. Omni’s post-show numbers blew past predictions. Subscriptions soared. So did trust. Because when your dog’s itchy skin clears up, when their digestion improves, and you don’t have to pump them full of meds to get there, it sticks. You remember. You stay.

Omni didn’t just sell dog food. It sold a future, one where companion animals aren’t reliant on suffering and slaughter.

Fur Babies

Of course, there's another story here. A shift that’s been building for decades. Dogs are no longer just pets. They’re family. Sometimes they’re surrogates. As fertility rates drop across the UK and much of the Global North, dog guardianship rises. It’s not a coincidence.

Studies have found people are consciously choosing dogs over children, citing ease, emotional fulfilment, and a manageable life expectancy. A dog, for many, is the baby. The psychology is clear. The ethics? Not so much.

Read More: Cute by Design: How Selective Breeding Has Warped Cats and Dogs

Because the irony is glaring: many who choose dogs as children are still feeding them the literal bodies of actual babies - lambs, calves, chicks. What sense of nurturing, what compassion, allows for that?

If we’re going to treat dogs like children, shouldn't we at least stop feeding them someone else’s?

Plant-Based Works

Let’s address the scare tactic up front: yes, dogs can thrive on a plantbased diet. Every major study on the subject, including the one published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, says the same thing. Health outcomes are equal, often better. Dogs like the food. They maintain good energy levels, healthy skin, proper digestion. The fear isn’t rooted in science, it’s in habit.

The meat industry clings to the idea that plantbased dog food is somehow “unnatural,” as if scooping burnt “animal derivatives” into a plastic bowl is nature’s plan. What’s unnatural is breeding billions of animals, dismembering them, and feeding the leftovers to our companions while telling ourselves we’re “animal lovers.”

It’s not “natural” to feed suffering. It’s normalised. There’s a difference.

Omni's and the End of Excuses

Omni’s rapid expansion now includes allergy-friendly wet food, free from common triggers like cow, dairy, soy, and grains. This isn’t niche. Up to 30% of dogs have allergies. Many live with chronic issues, medicated for life while eating food that makes them worse. Omni’s approach, hypoallergenic, plant-based, vet-formulated, isn’t just a nice idea. It’s a solution.

And it’s working. 20,000 new customers aren't flukes. They’re people who saw a better option and took it.

The Future of Feeding

Transitioning companions to plantbased diets is a significant climate change mitigation strategy which warrants immediate implementation. This isn’t a call for further debate. It’s a call for action.

Governments are asleep at the wheel. The media is still flirting with clickbait about “forcing veganism on pets.” Meanwhile, the science is screaming. The planet is burning. And the meat industry is laughing all the way to the bank.

But thanks to companies like Omni, and the people choosing to feed their dogs compassion instead of corpses, the tide is turning. This isn’t a trend. It’s a turning point.

And it started with two people, a big idea, and a few minutes on prime-time TV.

Dragons’ Den gave them a stage. Now they’re giving the rest of us a choice.

The only question is: what kind of guardian do you want to be?