Coast’s pets on board trend

IT’S one of those twists you don’t see coming but afterwards seem a tad obvious.

Boutique pet foods are starting to boom on the Gold Coast and according to some owners, vegetarians and vegans are their best customers.

Walking into Janine Soryal’s small niche food store in Miami is just like walking into any other health food shop.

Clean, Spartan lines with a wooden counter covered with artificial grass (the light won’t allow any real plants to grow).

It’s just a shame her best customers can’t tell her how much they love her produce.

Ms Soryal’s store sells premium petfood and one of her main customer groups comes as a surprise.

According to Ms Soryal one of the main demographics she sees at her Miami specialist pet food shop Wholefood Pet market is vegans and vegetarians.

And they are not shopping for meat-free treats for their favourite fur babies either.

“All the ones I see are mindful that dogs and cats are carnivores and need to eat meat,” she said.

“But they are very clued up in healthy eating so they are investigating what they feed their pets.”

It’s a trend that has also struck Will Lee at his recently opened Outlet Dog Food Organic at Coolangatta.

“We only been open since Monday but probably had about 20 people come through store, and we’ve had vegetarians come through and inquire about some of the foods,” he said

The stores represent a growing trend on the Coast where people are out to make sure their pets eat as well as they do.

For Mr Lee the major inspiration for his store came after his wife returned from a visit to a health food shop.

The former Sydney hair salon owner opened the store after selling his southern stores and trying retirement for a year.

“After 12 months of doing nothing I got a bit tired of doing nothing so I did a bit of research and looked for niche market,” he said.

“We decided to put in food dispensers so people can buy as much as they like.

“It’s build-your-own dog food. I’ve never seen it anywhere else in Australia. My wife goes to holistic health food shops and they do the same thing.

“She felt it might work as well in our store.”

While Mr Lee said his sardine and salmon was probably his most popular meal, Ms Soryal said her clients were a little more traditional.

“I’ve got a lot of commercially prepared raw food and some people prefer not to have to go to butcher or a meat section.

“They want something that’s easy to serve”

Ms Soryal said people were hungry for something that’s