We feed our pets a natural raw diet. We have tried many sourcing strategies over the years. Moving across the country recently meant we had to find sources all over again. Local 2 Pets’ web application allows us to connect raw feeders with local farmers, our Loyal 2 Pets products, and other vendors.

Many pet owners have found raw feeding after their pets experienced health issues on kibble or canned pet food. Highly processed food with unknown, questionable ingredients, or ingredients that simply have no benefits to carnivores are obviously not part of an ideal diet for your favorite companion. Unfortunately, the pet food industry is very large and influential, and it can even be difficult to find a veterinarian in many places that knows much about raw feeding, let alone promotes it!

Thankfully there are many vets who do believe in raw feeding. Some speak out publicly, and perhaps we will see the market pressure demand more options for pet owners. Currently, however, raw food options are often scarce and prohibitively expensive for many families. The cost of commercially available raw food is often comparable or even higher than food for humans is. Meats marketed as human food are also not always the best choice to feed your pets, as they may contain additives, antibiotics, chemicals, and/or sodium. Perhaps the least of these concerns is the digestive upset risk that many pets will take when ingesting sodium-injected (or brine washed) meat.

While quality of commercially available raw food for pets products vary greatly, it is mostly the processed grinds or mixes that make it to independent pet stores or other retailers. Most raw food producers can only sell you their product remotely and ship it to you. The shipping can be very expensive on a case of meat, perhaps even costing more than the food, itself! How is a discerning shopper to choose amongst these expensive options? One idea is to source the meat locally, and avoid the extra shipping cost! Pick up directly from the farmers who raise the animals, instead of from retailers.

* Secure credit card processing (currently through our partner, Paypal). For your convenience and for your protection your payments are transferred to the seller 72 hours after you have received your products.

* A convenient shopping cart where you check out once regardless of the number of farms you are buying from

* Support for smaller and family owned farms

* An opportunity for you to gain easy access to meat without expensive shipping charges!

* An opportunity for you to find fresher meat, that has not been frozen (perhaps more than once) and handled by multiple parties over an extended period of time, such as months.

* An opportunity to grow with us! As we network with farmers around the country, and beyond, we want to be your source for meat when you travel, too!

Keep in mind, most of the farmers selling on our website will not be selling a complete diet for your pet, but rather
ingredients for you to put meals together yourself.

If you know enough to do that, go right ahead. If you are a newbie, read through our posts for Raw Feeders and for more help reach out to us, we will be happy to help any way that we can. Our founder and CEO is a Certified Pet Nutrionist, and will soon be offering custom meal plans and other services

1. Register. We need to know your actual contact details so that your can be matched to any purchases that you make. The ability to see what local farmers have available is restricted to registered members, only. Membership is currently FREE.

2. Browse through the menus, or search by zip code or keywords for the products you want to see and check out featured vendors.

3. Local farmers whose stores are set up on Local 2 Pets will offer either pickup or delivery options (or both). Their stores will be open during limited hours (sometimes a few days a week). The location of the pickup might vary and is not always at the farm. Please read the vendor profile carefully.

4. Local Farmers advertising on the website will show inventory of what they currently have on hand. If you’d like to
purchase an item, add it to your cart. You must then specify the quantity or weight, according to the options available for that item. The inventory will not be reserved for you from the farmer’s advertised list until you checkout.

5. At checkout you will be required to set a date for pickup or delivery of each item, and will then checkout with PayPal. If the farmer offers delivery you must select that for each item you wish delivered, and select a date of delivery. An exact pickup time can be set, but for delivery you may specify only the date. The delivery time may be discussed with the farmer after you purchase and receive confirmation with the farmer’s contact info, or else the delivery time will be up to the farmer. It is very important that you do not change the delivery or pickup date, unless you notify Local 2 Pets, immediately.

6. You will receive an email with further instructions and your order details will also be saved online.

7. When you pick up your order or have it delivered, be sure to inspect the product. Do your best to estimate that the quantity and quality are as desired before signing the order sheet that acknowledges receipt of the goods (we advise farmers to get a signature when the goods change hands). Please fully inspect the product within the next 48 hours and contact us immediately if there are any issues of quality, quantity or other concerns. We will investigate all complaints that are filed within three days of the pickup or delivery date on record. If you need to change the pickup or delivery date, you must notify us immediately, or we may not be able to refund any portion of your purchase if there are issues with your order.

1. Browse the offerings from time to time: products offered today might be gone tomorrow!

2. When buying from multiple farms be sure to schedule enough time between pickups for you to travel anywhere within your search radius.

3. Be on time for your pickup. Farmers are food manufacturers and should not be expected to be extensively available like a retail location might be. If you need to change your pickup or delivery date, you must contact us, to ensure our 3-day Buyer’s Protection can still be offered.

4. Inspect your products at pickup.

As Local 2 Pets becomes a more distributed operation, we will have increasing challenges inspecting the farmers who sell on Local 2 Pets. Ultimately we exist to serve you, our Raw Feeding customer base. We certainly do not want you to have a bad experience, if you buy from a farmer who does not provide the quantity or quality of goods that they advertised or have any issues, you can contact us within 3 days of the pickup or delivery date that we have on record. We will then investigate and seek a resolution that will be fair to all parties. We may be able to refund all or part of your purchase, depending on the circumstances. You may be required to return unused portions of the purchase, in order to receive a full or partial refund. Refunds are not guaranteed, and will be explored on a case by case basis, but please be assured that it is our intention to ensure you receive exactly what you purchased when you buy on Local 2 Pets.

Please note that if your pickup or delivery date must change for any reason, you must contact Local 2 Pets immediately, or else we may not be able to offer any Buyer’s Protection on the order. Best Practice is to contact Local 2 Pets immediately, if you experience issues, and certainly no later than 3 days from the pickup or delivery date that we have on record (we recommend no later than two days from the pickup or delivery date that we have on record.)

1. If there are any issues with the products you received (including not receiving the product at all) from your Local 2 Pets order, please file a complaint here: http://local2pets.com/contact within 72 hours of the pickup date of your order as scheduled on local2pets.com.

2. Please respect that local2pets is a highly distributed operation and that all complaints need to be investigated in a timely fashion. We will not seek reimbursement or other reparations for complaints filed after 72 hours following the pickup or delivery time. Filing a complaint within the allowed timeframe will begin a formal investigation into the matter. Should you file a complaint, you will be required to provide a phone number and times by which you can be reached at.

3. We carefully monitor complaint history for each farmer and choose to keep vendors that retain the best reputation.

We have a blog post that walks you through buying with marked up images. We will update this blog post soon, as it sorely needs it! If you do read that blog post now, please be sure to come back to read the rest of this (more current) Buyers Guide!