Positive Paw Prints

Making positive paw prints on our planet, people and pooches.

As pioneers of natural dog food for over 50 years and a proudly British manufacturer, sustainability is at the heart of our business.

Our History

A sustainable heritage – in 1971 our original founder noticed a significant amount of nutritious offcuts being wasted in meat producers across the South West. He believed that rather than going to waste these high protein, nutritious parts of the animal could be used to create a natural food for dogs and Forthglade was born.

In the early days, the team had a small van and would regularly do the rounds collecting offcuts locally. Over time, the popularity of Forthglade’s naturally nutritious meals grew and as demand increased, long term relationships with nationwide meat producers were forged. Our sustainable approach continues to this day and ensures that unused material within the human food chain creates high quality natural food for our beloved canine companions.

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Our Mission

Nourishing relationships between our people, our community, and our planet.

As a pack of dog lovers, it’s important to us that every dogs dinner we serve is a force for good; nourishing dogs in need, nurturing that special bond between dogs and their owners, and importantly, helping to protect the planet for all future beings to enjoy (both 2 and 4-legged!).

From our humble beginnings, we’ve been striving to do right by our own people, our community of pooches and people, and the planet we are a part of.

Our Values

Our core values unite us, inform our decisions and help to shape our behaviours.

We are brave, ambitious & determined to actively reduce our impact on the environment

Everyone matters and every voice counts when building a happy team and supporting our local community

We take pride in the business we are creating by seeking the ethical and sustainable choices

Looking After Each other

At the heart of our story, is our people. We believe that by looking after our team, we can then help others around us.

Fair pay: We monitor salaries and are committed to paying a fair wage, not just meeting the national minimum wage.

Health and wellbeing: Our work is important to us, but we believe in a healthy work-life balance and offer flexible working options wherever possible. We also have membership to Grocery Aid, our industry charity, a free to access service, supporting financial and emotional wellbeing

Giving back: Our whole pack are passionately involved in giving back, including taking time out to support worthwhile causes through our staff volunteering days. Usually working as a team, we enjoy planting trees with our partners at the National Trust, or helping out at a local dog rescue centre for the day.

Nourishing Pooches

As a pack of Devonian dog lovers, we are committed to nourishing all dogs, especially those not lucky enough to be with their forever family just yet.

Through our ‘Happy Paws’ program, we regularly donate dogs dinners to charities across the UK who are providing care and support to dogs in need.

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Nourishing relationships between pooches & their people

Whether it’s our own dogs spreading cheer around our Devon office, or specially trained therapy dogs, we believe in the power of waggy tails to enhance health and wellbeing. It’s this belief that guides how we give back to our community of dog lovers:

Locally, we’re proud to support the devon-based charity ‘Veterans with Dogs’. A natural partnership, through our shared belief in the positive mental health and wellbeing benefits life with a dog brings.

We know that people protect what they love. In partnership with the National Trust, the 'Dogs Welcome' project allows dog owners to enjoy the properties and land the National Trust cares for across the UK. Resulting in more people engaging with, and supporting, this important conservation work.

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Reducing our pawprint on the planet

We have a strong focus within our operations team to become more energy efficient, reduce carbon emissions and minimise all sources of waste through our supply chain.

We've set ourselves ambitious targets for the next 2 years:

  • Last summer, we invested in approximately 2,000  solar panels, installed on the roof of our factory on the edge of Dartmoor. Over an average year, these are expected to generate 25% of the electrical power we need for our site.
  • This year, we're launching a water remediation project designed to reduce our site water usage by 28%. 
  • Overall, we're looking to reduce our waste by 30%.

Measuring the impact of our paw prints

As they say, what gets measured gets managed! We are committed to open and transparent reporting, here’s an overview of how we are doing against some of the paw print  targets we have set for this year’s reporting(which for us is October 2024 to September 2025):

Dinners for dogs in need

10,316* year to date

Target: 50,000 items

*Figures up-dated to end of January 2025

Staff volunteering days

10 days* year to date

Target: 40 days

*Figures up-dated to end of January 2025

Power from sunshine energy

7%* year to date

Target: 25%

*Figures up-dated to end of January 2025

Reducing our waste

26%* year to date

Target: 30%

*Figures up-dated to end of January 2025

B-Corp

We’re delighted to announce that we are on our B Corp journey. For us, our B Corp journey means taking all of the good things we’ve been doing and having them independently reviewed (so that you don’t just have to take our word for it), and importantly, drawing up a road map of where else we can improve our paw print over the coming years.  

Collaborating with other B Corps

We’re not content with just improving our own paw print, we’re committed to working with other B Corps wherever possible, to amplify the impact of business as a force for good.

Being a manufacturer means we know exactly which ingredients are going into our dogs' dinners, and importantly, where those ingredients have come from. You could say we're like a dog with a bone, constantly seeking ways to improve our sustainability.

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