Wynwood was featured in Pet Food Processing's look at "vet-formulated" pet food, alongside Hill's Pet Nutrition, Royal Canin and Vetnique. Here is what our CEO Michael O'Rourke shared about how we build our diets.
Why veterinary expertise matters so much in dog food
More pet parents are looking for food with veterinary credibility behind it, and "veterinarian-formulated" now shows up on a lot of labels. The article asked a simple question: what should that claim actually mean?
"Dog food is often the only thing an animal eats, every day, for its entire life. Small formulation errors compound in a way they never would in human food, and can take years to surface as a health problem. That is the risk veterinary expertise exists to prevent."
Michael O'Rourke, CEO and co-founder, Wynwood Dog Food Co.
Two experts, two perspectives
Every Wynwood recipe is developed by a Ph.D. animal nutritionist and a board-certified veterinary nutritionist working together. The Ph.D. brings formulation and ingredient science, making sure each diet hits its nutrient targets and is safe. The veterinary nutritionist brings clinical experience from treating real dogs. Together they own formulation and R&D: they set nutrient targets, choose primary ingredients, and approve every recipe and every reformulation.
"We believe pairing those two perspectives is what produces the best possible diets. And the work does not stop at launch. Formulas get revisited as the science evolves, as ingredient profiles shift, and as our own batch testing tells us how a recipe is actually performing."
That same thinking carries into sourcing:
"Ingredient sourcing is a shared decision: nutrition defines what an ingredient has to deliver, and our operations team sources to that spec."
Claims we can prove
We only make claims that our formulas and our lab results can back up. Take our Fresh Rx Renal Support diet:
"We don't say our renal diet will extend a dog's life, because that is a clinical outcome we can't promise. Instead we make claims the formula can stand behind, like that it is low in phosphorus or contains more protein than a typical renal diet. Those are facts confirmed by analysis, not marketing."
What to ask about any "vet-formulated" food
There is no regulated definition of "veterinarian-formulated," at the state or federal level. That makes it easy to put on a bag.
"'Veterinarian-formulated' is an easy claim to make and still be technically accurate, because almost any level of involvement clears the bar, and there's no agreed definition of the term. The real check is the consumer. Pet owners are getting sharper every year about hollow marketing. They're learning to ask the important questions: who actually formulated this, what are their credentials, is it tested, can the company show its work. A claim doesn't survive that kind of scrutiny. Substance does."
On the WSAVA guidelines
The article also covered the World Small Animal Veterinary Association guidelines, which are often reduced to one question: does the company employ a nutritionist?
"The guidelines themselves are reasonable: they ask whether a company has real nutritional expertise behind its food, which is a fair thing to want. We agree with that principle, and we meet it. The problem is how it has been flattened into a single yes-or-no question, 'do you employ a nutritionist,' used as a pass-fail test for whether a company is legitimate. That framing quietly favors the largest companies."
"Plenty of excellent, deeply nutrition-focused companies access that expertise without a full-time hire, and plenty of mediocre diets come from companies that check the box. We happen to answer yes, a board-certified veterinary nutritionist has been central to our team for years, but we still think the question is a poor proxy for what actually matters, which is whether the science behind the food is sound and tested."
