"All-in-One" Food / Supplement – Is This Accurate?

It’s a phrase you hear a lot: “All-in-one.” It’s used to describe pet foods, supplements, even entire routines. It sounds reassuring. Simple. Like a single product might tick every box when it comes to your dog’s health.

But is it accurate?

We’ve been thinking a lot about this, both as a business and as people who care deeply about dogs. The truth is, “all-in-one” has become one of the industry’s most powerful marketing tools. And it deserves some honest reflection.

The idea of a complete, tidy food solution isn’t new. In fact, as described in The Forever Dog, it’s at the heart of how kibble was born. Kibble was a smart idea. It solved a problem for pet owners with limited time and growing wealth. It created convenience. It was a great idea for a business, and we understand why it worked.

But the cost of that success, in hindsight, is harder to ignore.

Kibble took food that was otherwise unusable, heated it to high temperatures, added preservatives and flavours, and packaged it as complete nutrition. For many dogs, that shift meant a daily intake of highly processed, low-variety food. Not just for weeks or months. But for a lifetime.

If we apply the same model to human nutrition, the problem becomes clearer. Imagine eating the same biscuit, three times a day, for your entire life. It might meet technical nutrient requirements, but it would fall far short of what your body really needs to thrive.

And yet, this concept of “all-in-one” still shapes how we think about dog food. It’s part of the industry’s language. It influences what customers expect. And now it’s made its way into supplements too.

That brings us to our own product.

We make a supplement designed to support whole-body health, using real ingredients with real nutritional value. But it is not a complete food. It cannot replace the need for fresh, varied, species-appropriate meals. And we don’t want customers to treat it that way.

If you were to give your dog only our supplement and nothing else, that would not be a balanced approach. We’re not hiding from that. In fact, we’re trying to challenge the very thinking that has allowed “all-in-one” to become the goal.

The question is: can that message cut through?

We live in a market shaped by legacy players, mass advertising and long-held beliefs. Convenience is compelling. Certainty sells. Challenging those things means swimming against the current.

And that’s our honest tension. If we speak too differently from the industry, will people listen? Will we be taken seriously? Will we still be here in a year, able to grow and become a voice for better choices?

Or will nuance lose out to simplicity?

We don’t have the perfect answer. But what we do have is a commitment to staying honest. To telling the full story, even when it doesn’t sound quite as neat. Because this isn’t just about products. It’s about dogs. And about helping humans make informed, caring decisions on their behalf.

So the next time you see “all-in-one” on a bag or bottle, ask what it really means. What is included? What’s missing? What assumptions are being made?

At D33, we’re not trying to position ourselves as perfect. We’re trying to be different in the right ways. That means embracing complexity, not avoiding it. That means being transparent. That means reminding customers, and ourselves, that true wellbeing doesn’t come from a single scoop or a single solution.

It comes from awareness. From asking better questions. From doing things on purpose, not just because everyone else does.

And if that makes our message harder to sell, then we’ll just work harder to make it heard.