Simon Allison is a person, who performs a highly unusual work. He is a professional tester of pet food. In other words, his duties include tasting of dog and cat canned and dry food and also he can try food of fish, hamsters and other domestic animals. However, his main job is testing food for dogs and cats. Mr. Allison is a senior technologist with specialization in food company “Marks & Spencer”. This means that he is the one, who makes a last decision upon the readiness of animal food before entering the market. Simon himself admits that no one forced him to taste food for animals; just once he found it necessary to be sure that everything goes as it should. Mr. Allison says that, in general, dog and cat food is quite tasty, much better than is commonly believed. And, besides, he who stands behind all technological process knows that only natural products, without any unnecessary chemical additives are used in the process of cooking.
Simon has shared his observations that if dogs are less selective in food and eat almost everything, while cats, in contrast, are rather capricious. He has three cats with very strange names – Pants, Socks and Vest and their favorite food is a luxury stew of chicken with vegetables. Before testing a particular food, Mr. Allison, like a professional wine taster, first catches its scent, and just after listening to own sense of smell he proceeds to the actual tasting. He testes slowly and deliberately, and his task is to find in the meal the ingredients that are not indicated on the package. He also chews very slowly in order to recognize and accept the texture of the food. During a testing he always keeps a glass of water and chewing gum. It helps him to rinse the mouth and win “dog breath”.
Mr. Allison is very proud of his work – first of all, his profession is very rare, and secondly, he believes that his honesty and impartiality influence the comfort of the animals and their owners, and this automatically means a stable business of his company.
