His love of craft beer combine with her love of creating fresh, safe, healthful foods tied with their devotion to helping communities have less hunger and less waste took Melvin "Fish Scales" Adams & Chef Lara Holland into the business of creating spent grain dog treats.

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"I was tackling issues of hunger, health and food waste daily in my business ventures. Meanwhile, Scales was reading an article, in Beer Advocate magazine on how breweries in other parts of the world were addressing food waste and hunger.

That same week I was talking to a food bank about how to decrease food waste while solving hunger issues. I never thought we'd start with dog treats first, but "Scales" kept coming back to it, so we rolled with it." Chef Lara says. 

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We first made spent grain flour, which makes super awesome human treats, like Chef Lara's blackened spent grain chicken and her pumpkin squares. (Click to see recipes) 

We saw that people really loved their dogs and food for both humans and dogs was needed at the breweries themselves. The culture of many breweries was about bringing family, friends & dogs. Dog treats also seemed like the natural fit.

We made them to be human grade. After a bunch of R&D with local dogs, vets and pet allergist, 100 visits to a dog shelters, and a few walks in late November, we launched Healthy Bark.

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Because Chef Lara is certified in food allergen management, and personally manages 11+ allergies, we felt it was critical to make these treats hypoallergenic for pets facing allergies as well as humans in need of safe food handling. In addition we considered other medically necessary diets so they just so happen to be vegan and sugar free too. 

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A portion of Healthy Bark profits go directly to local nonprofits.