Ryan & Whisky
Co-founder
Whisky is small, opinionated and a genuinely difficult eater, which turned out to be useful market research. Ryan runs the relationships with our shelter partners.
Three dogs came home. The rest kept eating filler.
Chris adopted Nacho, then Nala. Ryan adopted Whisky. That is where most people’s story with a shelter ends: you sign the papers, you drive home, and the gate closes behind you.
For them, it did not end there because of what they saw on the way out. Shelters in Hong Kong run on donations and volunteer hours. Food is the single biggest recurring cost, so the bowls get filled with whatever is cheapest at the supermarket that week: rendered meat meal, wheat and corn filler, far from ideal for most dogs.
Yes, a dog can survive on that. But it is a long way from thriving on it. And a shelter dog is already carrying more than most: stress, an unknown history, a gut that has been through several diet changes, and the anxiety of waiting for their forever home.
The two of them could not adopt 150 dogs. What they could do was build a food company where shelter support is the number one priority, not an afterthought funded by leftover profit. Enter Buddy Bites — clean, human-grade dog and cat food with meat as the number one ingredient, and 1kg of food donated for every 2kg bought.
“We could take one dog each. We could not take the shelter. So we made the shelter part of the business instead of part of the marketing.”
Ryan and Chris, founders
Chris, Nacho & Nala
Co-founder
Two rescues, both mixed breed, both with the kind of digestive history that comes from years of switching between whatever food was available. Getting their guts right is the entire reason the recipes have prebiotics in them.
Catherine & Bently
Chris Nacho & Nala
Dr. Harries & Tanuki
Kate
Kayla & Gut Jai
Laura Teddy & Bear
Miffy Miu Miu & Yoshi
Ryan & Whisky