
SavourLife is a local family-run dog food business on a mission to save every dog in Australia.
Founded by Michael and his wife Kim in 2014, the company donates 50% of its profits to local shelters – and they have donated over $1million to date! These donations have helped save more than 6,000 abandoned dogs across the country.
The family is now taking its mission a step further with the launch of their dog adoption platform, Adopt a Dog. Despite being a self-professed nation of dog lovers and a country with one of the highest rates of pet ownership, Australia has over 200,000 dogs sent to rescue shelters each year, with sadly over 44,000 euthanised – SavourLife’s goal is to bring this number to zero.
SavourLife’s multi-million-dollar turnover has blown many of its larger competitors out of the water, proving doing good is just good business.

Tell us about SavourLife.
We are a family-owned, Australian company inspired by a love for dogs and a desire to make a difference. We make natural, Australian-made food and treats for dogs and donate 50% of our profits to volunteer-run, pet rescue organisations; helping them save and re-home abandoned dogs. We’ve now donated more than one million dollars to over 250 volunteer-run rescue groups and supported the re-homing of over 6,600 rescue dogs!
What inspired you to start SavourLife?
The real inspiration behind SavourLife was the first dog my wife and I had together, our Buddy. He was the inspiration and gave me the knowledge to start SavourLife. He bought an in incredible amount of happiness to us! We thought if everyone could experience that happiness, that would be a great thing.
Tell us about your career and background.
I worked both in the US and here at home in Australia in different marketing, sales and strategy roles in big corporates, believe it or not! Then one day at work, someone asked me what I would do if I didn’t have to work anymore and I said, “I’d go help rescue dogs”. It was a real light-bulb moment for me…why am I doing what I am doing if I don’t really believe in it? Instead, I could use all this business experience I gained to help rescue dogs instead. SavourLife was born from that conversation and I have always had dogs and have loved them since I was a little kid. My two rescue dogs, Missy and Max, are an incredibly big part of our lives and are a driving force behind SavourLife and our passion to give back to dogs around Australia.
Describe a typical workday for you.
Taking the dogs for a walk, then we all pile into the SavourLife van and off to the office. It’s great to have as many dogs as people in our office! I’m very involved in every part of our business daily, so my typical workday is generally a mix of all business-related tasks from product development all the way to product delivery. One of the main highlights of my day is when I get an alert of all the new dogs we’re helping as they get loaded onto our Adopt-A-Dog platform, it’s so great to see that our love for dogs is supported by so many other Australians.

What advice do you have for those wanting to start a business?
Just do it! Try it so you don’t have any regrets about what if or what else. It can be very hard to take that first leap of faith but back yourself!
Additionally,
it is important to make sure you have a business idea and key point of
difference to other businesses around you. Ask yourself what makes your product
or service different from everybody else’s and make sure you communicate that
clearly to your potential customers. Customers need a reason to change their
purchasing behaviour and you need to provide that to them…highlighting this has been key in helping us retain a
loyal customer base.
Finally, persevere. There will be a time (or times!) when you have a major setback and you’ll think it’s all over and it’s all too hard. Persevere, battle it out, you’ll get through it no matter what the issue. Try to focus on why you started your business and what makes you the best in the industry, and you’ll come out the other side!
What’s next for you, and SavourLife?
We’ve donated over one million dollars to volunteer-run pet rescue organisations now and have supported the rehoming of over 6,600 dogs – more than I ever thought we were capable of doing! Now we’ve gone back to the drawing board and have even bigger goals to meet. Our Adopt-A-Dog portal was the first major step in our mission of making sure that no adoptable dog is euthanised in Australia by 2022. It makes it easier for everyone to adopt a dog by having a virtual shelter, where little rescue groups from all over the country can post their available dogs. From a potential adopters’ point of view, they now have one website where they can search from thousands of available dogs and find the right one to match them and their family’s needs.
We’ll be rolling out more programs and initiatives like this over the next few years. All the while we won’t lose focus on what got us here, making the best Aussie-made food and treats for your best friend!