Do vets recommend Wellness dog food?
Wellness provides whole-food-based nutrition with a balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and a boost of antioxidants and probiotics for healthy digestion. Wellness has been in the dog food business for the longest time, and they continue to lead the way for many vet recommended dog food brands.
Do veterinarians get kickbacks from dog food companies?
Most veterinarians acquire their only knowledge on pet nutrition in elective classes in veterinary school. … These classes may only last a day or a week and are most often “taught” and sponsored by representatives from pet food companies!
Do vets and vet students get free food and kickbacks from “Big Pet Food”?
Veterinary students, veterinarians, veterinary nurses, hospital managers, and clinic support staff may have the opportunity to buy discounted food (for their personal pets) from certain pet food companies. Discounts may range from 10-50% off the retail price, depending on an individual’s role within the practice, but food is never free. This discount is applied as a way of saying thank you for continuing to have a good relationship with the company.
Veterinarians are not paid by pet food companies to stock and sell their food; contrarily, they must pay the company to stock their shelves. This means they buy the food at “cost” straight from the manufacturer, and then mark it up a certain percentage so they can sell it to pet owners. The markup for pet food is usually very small (less than 50%) because of the high initial cost of the product. By contrast, veterinarians can mark up some drugs by 200-500% because their initial cost is so low. See below for an example.
Veterinarians who choose to stock drugs and therapeutic diets do so as a convenience to their clients. They must mark these items up for many reasons: to cover the cost of loss when items expire, to cover the cost of pill bottles and labels, to cover the cost of paying a veterinary technician to dispense these drugs in a responsible fashion, and to earn the business a small profit. In turn, the client receives a product that is guaranteed to have been stored, handled, and dispensed properly, and they buy it directly from their veterinarian, which is a personal and convenient experience.
Veterinary clinics make far more money off of services than they do off diets or drugs. For example, a nail trim costs the clinic about 5 minutes of a veterinary technician’s time, plus the cost of a pair of nail clippers ($10 max). Most clinics charge a reasonable fee of $10-15 per nail trim. All of the profit goes directly back to the clinic because there is no product involved that they have to pay for or stock.
For many veterinarians, the cost of stocking pet food (and even drugs) is not worth the return, so they choose to write prescriptions or make suggestions for certain diets. When veterinarians send pet owners elsewhere, they do not make any money off the foods they suggest. Instead, the pet store or online pharmacy makes money off their own markups, which are usually much higher than the markups at veterinary clinics.