Roatan’s Beauty, Truth & Wisdom
Mitch Cummins shows his one pound wet dog food packets.

An Island Pet Food Company Prepares for Going Regional

The government COVID lockdown policies of 2020 ruined some people, made others more resilient, and even made some prosper. For Mitch Cummins, a long term American island resident, the lockdowns created a life changing business opportunity.

The origin of Cummins’ adventure with dog food goes back to 2021 during the COVID lockdowns. As his IT clients shut down one by one, he found himself with lots of free time and little income. Providence knocked on his door. “A friend had a dog with sores on his neck, and face and veterinarians agreed that this condition had to do with the pet’s food,” says Cummins. He decided to make some dog food from scratch, as no such dog food is sold on the island. “I came up with a recipe that cleared those sores in two to three weeks,” said Cummins. “And the dog loved the food.”

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” goes the proverbial phrase, and Cummins expanded his dog food experiment to feed several other dogs. All of them loved it. He purchased a mixer and began working out of his home kitchen. Cummins founded Roatan Pets in late 2020 and began selling his dog food in mid 2021.

Cummins came to Roatan in 2001 to escape a stressful job in the US and, purchased Paradise Computers internet café in Coxen Hole. In November 2002, he brought high speed internet to Roatan. Two decades later, he has refocused on a business about as far from IT as you can get. Cummins is best at generating business ideas and getting these businesses going.

I came up with a recipe that cleared those sores.

The global pet food industry has exploded in the last decade, and Cummins has discovered a niche in the growth of this industry in Latin America. He has plans to expand his small operations into a million-dollar food company within five years.

Latin America has the highest number of dog pets per capita of any region. According to Cummins, Latin Americans outspends their US counterparts $825 to $770 per year on dog food. “It’s shocking,” says Cummins.

Statista.com estimates that the US pet food market is growing in Honduras at around 6-7 percent per year, and is currently at $11 million. The dog food available on Roatan is either produced in the US, or in Guatemala. Dogui was a Guatemalan-owned brand before it was purchased by Multinational Cargill.

The commercial dry dog food that is being fed to most dogs on Roatan is inexpensive, but it can cause health, nutrition, and longevity issues in pets that eat it. “Feeding your dog commercial dried food every day is like eating at McDonalds every day,” said Cummins, who says that positive effects of switching a dog to wet food comes with visible improvements within just a couple of weeks. “I don’t know if you can repair past damage, [but] you’ll see the coat of the pet change. It will be softer, it will be glossier, and it will be shinier.”

The list of dog owners buying Roatan Pets wet dog food for Lps. 100 a pound is growing. The pet food industry is a very emotional economic sector, and its customers develop an emotional reaction to the products they choose for their dogs and cats. “For a lot of people, their pet is like their kid, it’s a child for them,” says Cummins, adding that during the COVID lockdowns, many childless couples began treating their dog or a cat as their child.

Roatan pet owners had to rely on US-made commercial dog food and slightly lighter fillers from canned food. “Generally, skin conditions are caused by fillers: corn, soybeans, or the chemicals that are in commercial dog food – preservatives or flavoring or coloring,” Mitch said about commercial dog food. “All of those are chemical additives. I think that about 95 percent of skin conditions in dogs are based on food allergies.” The dogs don’t handle chemical additives well, and their digestive systems weren’t made to handle those additives.

We try to cook everything as little as possible.

The dog food mixing and packaging operation moved from Cummins’ home basement in West Bay to a commercial space next to the new Serrano’s hardware store in French Harbour. Roatan Pets has three employees, and relies on Rosita Butcher Shop for meat scraps and Disandy for vegetables. Roatan Pets has plenty of space for processing and packaging food –there are grinders, a freeze dryer, and a dehumidifying room.

The key to making the dog food affordable is locating protein sources that are inexpensive and in plentiful supply. The proteins in his dog food selections are beef, chicken, liver, and sometimes fish. Meet scraps are obtained from the local butcher shop Rosita. Cummins determined that the cheapest nutritional chicken on the island came from the US. “That shocked me,” said Cummins. “That is the cheapest nutritional chicken I could find.”

The proteins and bones are ground up separately in a grinding machine. The calcium from the bones is beneficial to the dog’s diet. Beef, chicken, and fish are cooked separately first, and liver is added at the very end. Rice and sweet potatoes are mixed in at the last stage. Then the food is cooked again so the flavors could mix. “We try to cook everything as little as possible. So it is safe and edible for the animal,” says Cummins.

While pasteurization at 140 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes kills all pathogens, most commercial pet food companies prefer to save time by cooking it at 400 degrees, which eliminates all the food’s nutritional value. The process is cheaper, but the pet ends up eating more to satisfy its nutritional requirements. Roatan Pets prepares its food differently – “We cook the food as minimally as we can,” says Cummins, who even experimented making raw dog food. He says that the island climate would spoil the food in about a day. The high temperature and high humidity would affect the food and the pathogens would grow.

Production in November 2024 grew to about 200-300 lbs per week, and most of his customers are subscription-based.

Roatan Pets has some customers in Utila and Guanaja, and for a while in Trujillo but no longer. Roatan Pets has five main dog food recipes, and another 40 variant recipes off those. The wet food is packaged in one, two, three, five, and ten pounds bags, and sold frozen to clients through Roatan.

Roatan Pets is exploring freeze-drying as a method to expand its production — a process that removes nearly all moisture from the food. The freeze dried food is then vacuum sealed, and has a shelf life of 20 to 25 years when the bag is sealed. Once opened and sealed back when not in use, the dog food should be good for several months. As another plus, freeze dried dog food will be much less bulky and lighter than wet food.

Another benefit to this process is that while dehydration removes about 30-40 percent of the food’s nutritional value, freeze drying retains about 98 percent. It is a 24 hour process, regardless of the quantity of the food being processed. In the end, between a quarter and one-third of a cup of freeze-dried food is needed to make a pound of dog food.

Once water is added, the food is back to its original state, before the dry freezing had been applied, in about five minutes. Once it is freeze dried, the customer base should expand exponentially.

Despite being a good retail market, Roatan is a far-from-perfect place to launch a pet food production facility. The supply chain is such that there are times that it is difficult to get certain vegetables for weeks at a time. Island rent and labor costs are also high. “Roatan was probably the worst place to start this business,” says Cummins. Virtually all the ingredients used to make the dog food come from the mainland, and the electricity powering Roatan Pet’s large machines costs four times more than on the mainland.

We are going to be selling all over Central America.

There are a few advantage of being based on the island, however. Roatan has been a good market to launch the business, and to learn the finer details. Cummins knows many people here, and in all likelihood there are several thousand dogs living on the island.

As Roatan Pets grew, Cummins realized that his business could be scaled way up quickly. “Within three years, we are going to be selling all over Central America,” says Cummins. “In four or five years we’ll be in Mexico. Once in Mexico, we’ll be in the States, in a limited way.” The future is looking bright.

A chance encounter with a dog suffering from a rash set Mitch on a path that, four years later, has him building a regional dog food business. His venture aims to provide pet owners from Mexico to Panama with high-quality, preservative- and coloring-free food for their pets.