Homemade dog biscuits proving a hit in Germany

By Christine Cornelius Feb 23, 2012, 3:06 GMT

Munich - It all began when Flipp the dog developed an upset stomach. To ease the symptoms Flipp's owner, Sabine Beintinger, began to bake Flipp biscuits. She leafed through cookbooks, experimented with ingredients, added a bit of banana and left a bit of cheese off. Flipp enjoyed her snacks and didn't get an upset tummy.

Other dogs also liked Beintinger's snacks and today she runs a dog biscuit bakery in the Bavarian city of Regensburg. Her coconut, fennel and banana biscuits are sold in 100 gram bags. She bakes half of all the vegetarian snacks at home in her own oven, the rest are delivered by a pastry cook.

Opening dog biscuit bakeries has developed into a trend in Germany, according to Lisa Kraemer from the country's Animal Food Association. 'We're receiving quite a lot of inquiries from private individuals. But whether they can turn their idea into reality is another story,' she says.

The small private dog biscuit bakeries are not posing a threat to the established manufacturers. 'Naturally one or two will develop into something bigger but they will produce in very different amounts than our members do.' Kraemer says that's because it's difficult for small bakeries to produce dog biscuits and the big companies also have their own departments checking on food safety.

Beintinger says she has no intentions of going head to head with the big companies. 'You will certainly never get rich by making dog snacks,' she says. 'You have to do it because you love it.' Her bakery is more of a hobby and profits are donated to an animal protection organisation.

Beintinger makes all the biscuits herself using ingredients like Parmesan cheese, buckwheat, honey and spinach. It's no surprise that some dog owners not only buy the biscuits for their pets, but like to have a snack for themselves.

In the state of Bavaria alone there are about 40 dog biscuit bakeries. Most have a very limited range of products, according to Claudia Thielen, who works for Bavaria's animal feed safety authority. Officially a dog biscuit maker is an animal feed supplier and must conform to EU regulations. 'A dog biscuit baker must analyse their process for making biscuits and identify if there are any risks.'

'If someone can plausibly explain to us that they have thought through the process of making dog biscuits, then we will accept that. We won't raise the bar as high as we would for conventional animal feed makers who produce thousands of tons of food,' says Thielen. Baking dog biscuits is not a complicated business. 'Dog biscuit makers are not among the big risk group of manufacturers,' she says. A wide range of people bake dog snacks including housewives who simply like baking, and dog trainers.

Beintinger says dealing with Bavaria's authorities was a very complicated business. 'We had to work very hard to fight through to the end.' Beintinger drew up documents with details of purchases, transport and storage of the raw materials. She also had to describe what types of risk were involved in the production and how they could be controlled. In the end no-one had any objections.

Today, Beintinger has about 15 different types of dog biscuit on sale in her small shop in shapes including cats and bones.