Mumbai, Oct. 16 -- Since the announcement of the launch of 'India's first pure Jain dog biscuit' on Monday, Fredun Medhora, 39, Managing Director of Fredun Pharmaceuticals Limited (FPL), said his phone has been ringing every three to four minutes with calls for pre-orders. While the first batch of 'Snacky Jain' is expected to hit stores next month, Medhora said that 12 tonnes of the product have been sold in pre-orders on WhatsApp. In a city that has popularised Jain remakes of everything from pav bhaji to pizza, Snacky Jain comes as a gateway for Jains wondering what to feed their canines, said Medhora. In addition to being vegetarian, the Jain diet typically forbids eating root vegetables like onion or garlic and honey. Medhora is clear in stating that dogs don't like vegetarian food but 'Snacky Jain' is an intervention to replace the 'kachra (garbage)' that dogs are fed in the name of vegetarian treats. The biscuits, Medhora said, are fit not just for dogs but also humans. As empirical data, he said 'Snacky Jains' had been tasted by not only his own dogs but also by his 81-year-old mother. Fredun Pharmaceuticals Limited is a Mumbai-headquartered publicly-listed company that makes allopathic drugs, nutraceuticals, surgical products, a large range of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for humans and also a number of animal and poultry healthcare brands. The idea for 'Snacky Jain' came after Medhora met about 800-900 people who want to have pets but they are Jains and they have certain food restrictions. "There are some affluent people with opulent homes that can easily afford to have a dog but they are strictly vegetarian. It is a gateway product for those guys to start keeping pets," said Medhora. Medhora who lives with his mother and five dogs--an apricot poodle, a poodle-terrier and their three puppies-says he feeds his dogs chicken, eggs, pumpkin and rice. The dog lover is at pains to stress that Snacky Jain is not a substitute for a dog meal. "You cannot give your dog Snacky Jain three times a day. In fact, we would strongly oppose it. Why should a dog have a vegetarian diet? It should not. But that is the whole point of creating this biscuit. So that even if you are giving the dog something vegetarian, at least give something that has multivitamins and will meet the daily (dietary) needs of the dog to an extent rather than the pure maida (refined wheat) biscuits that dogs are fed. It is not a replacement for food. It is a replacement for junk that people feed animals." He said that in India some pets are given only vegetarian food. "There are homes that only feed their dogs curd-rice. The animal hasn't tasted anything other than curd-rice. Isn't that cruelty? It's insane but you can't go to each household and ask them what they are feeding (their dogs). I am not a vigilante, I am a guy who wants to run a business. So, if there are better options (in veg or Jain food for dogs) then let's do it." FPL that also runs the Fredna Vet Diagnostics in Worli, roped in their in-house pet nutritionist Dr Dhananjay Pandit in the making of Snacky Jain. Its ingredients include rice, ragi, oats, Kakvi (liquid jaggery), fruit and vegetable extracts, vitamins, minerals, rosemary extract and Brahmi. The biscuits are priced at Rs.35 for a 100 gm packet, Rs.265 for 500 gm and Rs.425 for a kilogram. Snacky Jain, manufactured by Freossi, the pet care arm of FPL, was preceded by Snacky Veg, also sold as India's first vegetarian dog biscuit. "A lot of people would first ask if Snacky Veg contained honey. When they knew it did, they wouldn't buy it because Jains don't eat honey. Then people said why don't you make something without honey. So, we knew there was a demand for it," said Medhora. The biggest market for Snacky Jain, he said, would be Mumbai, Bengaluru, Sangli, Satara, Chennai and some parts of Kolkata. "Because that's where the concentration of the Jain community is," said Medhora....