Jesse Crouse-Tell doesn’t routinely eat the dog treats he makes, but the ingredients are 100 percent human grade. In the early days of his company, Sea-Stainable Pet Food, the business owner had to try his treats because he wanted to know how they tasted.
“I’ll take little nibbles of stuff here and there, just to see,” Crouse-Tell told the Sun. “Not as much now, but when I was first starting out.”
For good pets
Find Jesse Crouse-Tell at the Sea-Stainable Pet Food store located at 1438 Burton Mesa Blvd. in Lompoc. The shop’s open from 3 to 6 p.m. on Sundays and Tuesdays and from noon to 6 p.m. every other day.
Buy online at seastainablepetfood.com and follow @seastainablepetfood on Instagram for updates.
There aren’t any “weird” ingredients in his treats that wouldn’t be safe for humans, he tells customers. No fillers, no preservatives.
“Legally, I have to tell them it’s not for human consumption, but if you were in a survival situation, it’d be a really cool thing to have,” the business owner said.
Balancing the flavor of pet treats is a tricky thing and something he’s always curious about. It’s hard to tell what dogs will like because each has their own palate, just like people.
Take his pumpkin and peanut butter treats. When they’re in the oven, they smell amazing—imagine a warm waft of fresh-baked peanut butter cookies. However, without butter or sugar, Sea-Stainable’s recipe isn’t appealing to human tastebuds.
“When we go to eat it, it’s like, ‘Oh, this is relatively bland,’” Crouse-Tell described. “But the dogs love it.”
He has three trusty canine taste testers at home: Foxi, Jasper, and Shilo. Foxi is a small mutt who will eat almost anything. The other two are particular about sweet and savory flavors, rounding out the trial results for new recipes.
What surpasses flavor in terms of Sea-Stainable’s priorities is the health factor—using clean, raw ingredients that are easy for pets of all shapes and sizes to digest.
Crouse-Tell’s business idea came to him in 2017 while he was working as a fishmonger in Southern California. He manned many farmers market booths, selling fish filets to customers who fed the meat to their animals. Instead of the filets, he thought he could use fish scraps to make something similar.
“I can basically make the same thing at a cheaper price point and have all the same farmers market perks like traceability, sustainability, and all that,” Crouse-Tell said. “And have it geared more toward the pets without taking any food off the table for people.”
His idea “snowballed” into Sea-Stainable Pet Food, named after the business’ seafood-inspired origin and eco-friendly packaging materials. After the pandemic hit, Crouse-Tell moved back to Lompoc, where he was born and raised, continuing his operation out of his home and later in other kitchen spaces.
Eight months ago, the owner signed a lease for his own storefront in Mission Hills. It’s where he batches and packages the treats, and the space is slowly turning into a pet store with toys and other accessories.
In addition to online sales, Sea-Stainable Pet Food can be found at the Route One Farmers Market in Lompoc, the Tuesday market in Orcutt, and the Buellton farmers market that’s set to start in March.
Half of the treats Crouse-Tell makes only use one freeze-dried ingredient like salmon, beef liver, chicken breast, or Alaskan cod, which he sources from Lompoc’s Alfie’s Fish and Chips. Other meats like chicken come from farms in the Midwest.
The rest of Sea-Stainable’s treats are a combo of a few ingredients. The chicken and yam sticks can be freeze dried or dehydrated to customize the crunch level for pets with different preferences. Another stick with chicken, apple, and rice has the texture of a chip so that dogs with dental issues can chew it without damaging their teeth.
Because of the wholesome ingredients, some pets with digestive sensitivities respond well to Sea-Stainable Pet Food.
“I can’t even count how many instances where people come up with cats or dogs with a sensitive stomach, and a large part of the time it’s actually just the preservatives that are throwing off the stomach. Not always, but a very good handful,” Crouse-Tell said.
Customers have also reported that the apple, carrot, and blueberry treats are enjoyed by their turtles, rabbits, guinea pigs, and hamsters.
As Crouse-Tell settles into his new storefront, he’s planning the company’s next expansion. By the end of this year, he’s hoping to have formulated a complete dog food, ideally using Alaskan cod from Alfie’s.
First, he needs to get the recipe tested and approved.
“I want to use some sort of seafood, kind of get back into my namesake,” he explained. “That keeps things rolling to the point where it would otherwise be food waste, so I get to repurpose it and kind of do what I was originally doing.”
He fondly remembers selling fish at farmers markets in Southern California and still gets that chance with Sea-Stainable treats. In the future, the owner hopes to create a farmers market line so his customers can walk down the block and see the growers whose ingredients are in their pet’s food.
Setting up a farmers markets booth is his favorite part of the job because he gets to interact with furry friends, his true customers.
“Being able to pet the dogs and just hang out with them—that’s one of the best perks of the job.”
Reach Staff Writer Madison White at mwhite@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in February 19 – February 26, 2026.