Challenger to Watch: Yora
I’ve spent January boring waiters to tears with my restaurant orders. The latest being a muffled request for the ‘Fritter 2.0 (v)’ in a place famous for its beef burgers. It might be because the world is literally on fire, but environmental concerns are rightly gaining in their share of international worry. Naturally, as we reflect on our carbon footprints, our pets’ carbon pawprints are coming under scrutiny too.
Apparently a whopping 20% of the world’s meat and fish goes to feed our 500 million pets. After one too many an emotional pummelling on Netflix, we all know that meat production is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
There has been a surge in brands trying to shrink our pets’ environmental impact. Most famously Wild Earth, winning investment on America’s Shark Tank for their clean protein dog food. Although sharks may be open to Veganism, I can’t imagine my dog Noodle living off leaves alone. In an unscientific study of one, he completely ignores a dropped lettuce leaf whilst his enthusiasm for chicken bones has almost dragged me under many a bus.
Yora is challenging the notion that our dogs’ carbon pawprint needs to be so big. Instead, in 2018 they launched an insect-based sustainable dog food. They are overtly challenging the established behaviour of feeding our dogs meat or fish. Pleasingly Yora walks the walk by being green at every level - from sustainable packaging, to humanely making their larvae sleepy before blending them and using oats that are grown in a field next-door to their factory. They also claim nutritional equivalence with regular dog food, along with a dramatic reduction in environmental impact.
Ultimately the real test comes from the four-legged experts themselves. And so, I tried it out on my notoriously fussy dog Noodle and so far, no complaints. We’re six days in and he’s still chowing down. This sentiment is echoed loudly in the brand’s feefo rating of 4.8 from 222 pets and their people (6th Jan).
Yora comes from seasoned retailer Pets Corner which should mean they can move faster than your average start-up. In 2020 it will be interesting to see which growth opportunities they pursue, be that ranges for different pets or expanding to other geographies. Given the volume of the climate emergency, Yora might be one of the first challengers in this space, but I envisage others, including the big brands, will swiftly follow. From a challenger perspective, that means Yora could do with further amplifying their differences and being prepared to shout a bit louder about the monster they are fighting.
Whilst I’m still feeling rather January-ish, Yora’s name, stemming from an ancient proverb, resonates with me. It means ‘walk softly on the earth taking only what you need’. It might be a bit earnest for a tattoo, but it is probably a pretty good new decade’s resolution and since Noodle can’t talk yet, we’ll have to presume he agrees.