When he picked up and adopted a stray dog a few years ago, little did Ishmeet Singh Chandiok know that the mutt would help turn his life around. As he cooked healthy and tasty food to whet his dog Harley's appetite, Chandiok realised he had a business on his hands. His job with troubled Kingfisher Airlines, which had defaulted on salaries by 2011, wasn't going anywhere. He began by selling dog food to his neighbours three years ago and he sells across three Indian cities today.
Chandiok is one of many city chefs specialising in healthy food for pet dogs and cats, a nascent market whose value has not been estimated. Recently, Chandiok was at his Andheri home, working on a birthday cake for a client, while his pooches sniffed the air. The client was a two-year-old shih tzu named Cassie from Andheri.
Ishmeet's list of good and bad food for dogs
Good: Meat, fish, cauliflower, carrots, beans, pumpkin, sweet potato
Bad: chocolate, onion, salt, oil, butter, sugar, chicken and fish bones
For Chandiok, who graduated from Dadar Catering college and went on to become the deputy general manager of international and domestic catering operations for Kingfisher Airlines, the idea of his business came from his own dog. "Harley loved the food we cooked for ourselves, and would not touch the dry pellets from the dog food packets. I started making food for him, after researching recipes online, and he really loved it. In three months he lost so much weight that I got worried and took him for a complete physical check-up. The vet assured me that he was healthy, and what I termed weight loss was muscle definition," he said. He then began cooking for neighbours in his society, which housed 30 dogs then. The neighbours were willing to buy in bulk, and Chandiok launched his career as a dog chef, with loans from family and friends.
From making 25 to 30 doggy meals a day, Harley's Corner now sells food in Pune, Gujarat and Bangalore. His customer Varsha Taurani of Khar said, "I feed fifteen strays in my area Ishmeet's meals twice a month. His food has a lot of options for health and breed specific diets. When we celebrate my dog Max's birthday, we order his special cakes, cupcakes and ice-creams."
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