The Kibble Refill Station is a new, eco-friendly program that enables consumers to buy kibble through a self-serve (bulk food) merchandiser​, using re-usable kibble bags.

Over 300 million pounds of pet food bags end up in landfills every year. As part of Canidae’s dedication to bring goodness to pets, people, and our planet, we knew there had to be a solution to this wasteful problem. Last year Canidae began bringing packaging made with 40% post-consumer-recycled materials across our product lines. While a great step in our mission to reduce our carbon footprint, we knew we could take this a step further and find a solution to single-use plastic waste fully. With the Kibble Refill Station, Canidae hopes to eliminate 50,000 plastic bags from the landfill in its first year and reduce plastics by 80% in the next ten years.

When you’re using the Kibble Refill Station, our Canidae Sustain, Cage Free Chicken, costs $2.75/lb and our Pure Salmon costs $2.99/lb. The reusable bag costs $2.99 to purchase and are free to re-use. The cost per pound in the Kibble Refill Station is significantly lower than buying pre-packed kibble, and affords you the opportunity to save up to 40% per bag!

For safety reasons, we require you to use the reusable bags provided by Canidae and Petco, which are food-safe and sealable with a zipper.

Inside the machine, the kibble is held in 100% recyclable bags that hold hundreds of pounds of food.

These “bulk bags” are specially designed with a narrow opening at the bottom that is only opened when it is loaded into the Kibble Refill Station. Only a small amount of kibble (about one-fill worth) is what moves from the bulk bag into the dispenser. This small amount of kibble is typically only in there for a matter of hours. It is constantly cycling through as the Kibble Refill Station is used. Kibble is shelf stable and always exposed to air (there are small holes on the side of most bags to allow for air flow), so this does not have any impact on the freshness or shelf life of the kibble.

Safety and traceability are paramount – these are our 4-legged family members after all! Every time a bulk bag is filled, it arrives to the store with a unique lot code and expiration date. This is all printed on a paper tear pad that is placed next to the receipt printer so every consumer has that information as well as the ingredient and nutritional information for that formula. This tear pad is replaced every time the Kibble Refill Station is refilled.

Again, we cannot stress the importance of safety enough. The station is wiped down daily to remove any kibble that may have missed the bag, but there is a full cleaning process in place that occurs each time a bulk bag is replaced. This happens every week or two depending on how quickly the bags run out and making sure the refill stations stay clean and safe are extremely important to us.