Home » Spotlight • US business news » What it’s like to earn $34,000 a year tasting pet food
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Pet food, generally, is not something most animal owners would willingly eat.
It smells terrible and is packed full of unappealing jelly.
Nonetheless, there has to be some quality control; after all, if it was really disgusting, no animals would eat it either.
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One of the weirdest jobs around is that of the dog food taster.
Yes, really, there are people who get paid to test dog food!
A professional pet food tester-taster earns at least $34,000 per year and can even get up to more than $100,000 annually.
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The job involves taking small bites of particular dog food; they will then have to analyze all the different components in the food.
Then they spit it out and cleanse their mouth to prepare for the next sample by sipping water or gargling.
The aim is to make sure each ingredient is balanced correctly.
The good news is they don't spend all day eating dog food, as they are also in charge of various paperwork around the food and evaluating the nutritional values.
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Philip Wells, the chief tester for Lily's Kitchen in the UK, spoke to the Metro in 2015.
"The aroma of food tells you so much.
"If it smells bad it probably is bad.
"Our recipes use only freshly prepared meat and botanical herbs so it doesn’t smell like normal dog food.
"Trying the food is the best way to pick up on the nuances of the cooking.
"'Eating your own dog food” is a term used when describing a company who practice what they preach by using their own products to demonstrate their quality.
"Well, at Lily’s Kitchen not only do we feed our dogs and cats exclusively on Lily’s Kitchen foods – we go the extra mile and quite literally eat our own dog food.
"And for what it’s worth, I quite like it."
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