Origins of Jack Wolf

It’s all about Jack and Maggie.

No, we’re not talking about ourselves (Christopher and Luiza, nice to meet you.) We’re talking about our beloved dogs – the hairy inspiration behind our raw dog food brand.

It started back in 2010, when a Lab / Collie crossbreed caught our eye across a local kennel. 

Enter Jack, a very special boy who was initially destined for another family but whose needs better matched our setup (sometimes you don’t find a dog - sometimes a dog finds you.)

Collie crossbreed Maggie joined our pack a year later - making our family complete. But the story was far from over. Jack and Maggie were about to take us on a journey we never could have imagined - opening a shop, creating our own raw dog food from scratch, building a factory and becoming responsible for feeding thousands of canines across the country (gulp, no pressure.) 

Living and working with animals

Before Jack and Maggie arrived, we’d often talked about running a business together, but had never felt inspired to take the plunge. 

After becoming pet parents, we faced daily decisions in a quest to give our dogs the best possible quality of life. It soon became apparent that the UK pet care industry is saturated with confusing and conflicting information – creating a minefield where animal lovers are more influenced by mass marketing than accessing reliable information. 

Here was our opportunity to provide other pet owners with the education, information and advice they needed to get the very best out of their much-loved animal companions. 

So, with no retail experience but a great gut feeling, we opened a small natural pet shop in our hometown of Brighton. 

The business thrived and we loved the social aspect of our work, meeting like-minded people who wanted to do right by their pets. 

Love at first bite 

We discovered raw feeding for dogs while chatting with some of our regular customers (and we’ll be honest, we thought they were slightly bonkers at first.) Such a diet was almost unheard of at the time, but witnessing their enthusiasm, commitment and unwavering belief in the benefits of raw was inspiring.

We decided to give raw feeding a try and were instantly hooked. 

Complete converts.

Totally flabbergasted by the positive changes in our dogs (not least by the change in their poo - from huge and stinky to small, solid and super-easy to pop in the bin.)  

We became overnight converts and, blabbermouths that we are, couldn’t keep this newfound knowledge to ourselves.

Raw feeding is often seen as an ‘out-there’ concept, fun to try but impossible to sustain. We wanted to change that - a raw food diet for dogs makes sense. It’s a no brainer (that just happens to have amazing results.) 

The Jack Wolf brand

The Jack Wolf brand was born in the cramped back room of our tiny pet shop, from a desire to offer quality raw dog food to as wide an audience of dog owners as possible.

Armed only with a dinky electric mincer and a small freezer, we began to produce a small amount of raw food from our own tried and tested recipes (Jack and Maggie selflessly helping us with our research, they’re supportive like that…)

Growing demand soon saw us move to bigger premises where we stared into the depths of our new industrial freezers, we wondered how we’d ever come close to filling them. Now, we have a blast freezer that’s bigger than our original store! 

Our product range has evolved over months and years as we’ve taken our time to source the right ingredients, learn the best preparation processes and develop the highest production standards to produce the finest raw dog food on the market. 

A terrific team

Gradually, we’ve pieced together a dedicated team of staff – made up mostly of friends and neighbours who shared our enthusiasm for raw feeding. 

Unlike many owner/managers, we don’t work on the business, we work in the business. You’ll find us cleaning the bloody (quite literally) mincing machine, not behind our laptops, and we’re unlikely to hire a remote market research firm to tell us what we can find out ourselves at the local dog park. 

The Jack Wolf way

We’re obsessed with producing the best raw dog food on the market and enthusiastic about its benefits, but we’d hate to be raw food evangelists - we prefer to let our products speak for themselves.

Our own dogs thrive on their raw food diet, and this gives us a huge amount of pleasure. As a pack, we’re living our best lives. We’d love you to join us and give raw food a try (and we’ll be here to offer all the advice and support you need if you do.) 

Christopher, Luiza, Jack, Maggie and the Jack Wolf family.

Further content

Jack Wolf, created in Sussex in a modern, purpose-built facility which by its design and through each stage of the manufacturing process from beginning to end, upholds some of the highest standards of food production.

As a small team, we are hugely grateful for the support we receive from hundreds of our wonderful customers. We are passionate about what we do and embrace the technical challenges of producing a consistently high-quality product.

Jack Wolf is amongst the freshest available. A result of strict sourcing through to how ingredients are stored and processed. We firmly believe that raw dog food should be as much, if not more carefully managed than the food we buy for ourselves.

Our over-riding aim is to provide your dogs with products which are not only healthy but are as hygienic and clean as possible. We only use human grade ingredients in Jack Wolf. No artificial flavours or preservatives are used.

Food Safety Partner

Carl of Challenger Food & Safety, who worked for many years as an Environmental Health Officer has been instrumental in ensuring we develop safe working practices and keep improving. He undertakes quarterly audits to assess, validate our procedures and help us make sure we achieve the aims of our HACCP plan. He is also a thoroughly nice chap (note his friendly face), his input is positively valued as a member of our wider team.

We also have a good relationship with the DEFRA who have undertaken multiple site visits since our inception and have remarked very positively on our approach.

We are licensed by DEFRA Authority Approval: 41/069/8101 ABP/PTF. 

Further original information

It takes various names from "raw" to "barf." We're demystifying it. In reality it's pretty straight-forward; feeding what a dog is designed to eat makes sense. Feeding real food. No unspecified ingredients and no corners cut. 

The raw ingredients, many of which we all eat ourselves, are carefully combined to bring you a safe and conveniently packaged food for your dog. It's not compressed or cooked a multitude of times to conceal and destroy. 

Uncorrupted; the food format is not only packed with nutrients but is easily digested. If you haven't fed raw food before you are very likely to notice a change; in the stools, the eyes, the coat. And dogs with little appetite for food often improve dramatically!

It's always exciting to hear of every success customers old and new have with feeding our range. Every single one. We are all collectively helping to move the tide. Making food as it should be! Real food for healthier, happier dogs. 

If you haven't fed raw before and have any questions click on the blue chat icon, use our contact page or message us via facebook! :)

Puppy Text from July 2017

We do not promote a 'puppy' food per se. Variety is best for your young puppy as it provides interest, a range of nutrients and exposes them to different culinary experiences so to speak; introducing these early on so they become accustomed to this for their life.

Provided that your puppy has weaned onto solid food we recommend a sample pack. The original range is fed very successfully by thousands of dogs and consists of chicken, turkey, duck and the beef and original recipes. Feeding guidelines are available.

Do not panic or fret too much over guidelines. Observation and common sense prevail. Keeping a close eye on weight gain; feeding plenty! The percentage you are required to provide compared to body weight is significant for puppies.

Any advice we can give or questions you may have; you can pop us an email using the contact page, and we will do our very best to answer. 

You would be doing a great job by feeding real identifiable food of a high standard. Having a puppy for the first time particularly and hearing so many conflicting and passionate views about what dogs should eat, can make it rather challenging.

The Jack Wolf team wish you the very best of health for both your puppy, yourself and wider family whatever you decide. Few things are more enjoyable than sharing your life with these beautiful creatures!

Ingredients Text

British Meat, not British Sourced.
Jack Wolf is composed entirely of British grown human grade meats. Not "locally sourced", a flexible term which can so often describe imported meat purchased from a local supplier. 

Welfare
The meats used are a mixture of wild, high welfare, organic and free range. We do not specify which in some recipes as to be transparent; not claiming one type where they are in combination.

Fruit & Vegetables
They are all supplied to us washed, laser sorted and prepared as they are for human food. These ingredients can often cost more than many types of meat by kg at wholesale!

Ranges
Customers reviews on the product pages will testify to the positive results of the Jack Wolf ranges. Divided into two halves; (1) the original working dog range, a varied diet containing veg and (2) Primal Instinct which takes a purer 80-10-10 construction as its influence and is free of veg.