The Story Behind Butter & Bark

Meet Chef
Jennifer Mais

Michelin Star Pastry Chef de Partie. Weill Cornell Medical. An older dog named Riley who started it all.

Butter & Bark is the first premium bakery built for both species — baked with the craft of a Michelin kitchen and the care of a scientist.

Illustrated felted-doll portrait of Chef Jennifer Mais in her kitchen

The Origin

The Dog Who
Started It All

Butter & Bark has an origin, and her name is Riley — one of Jennifer's older dogs.

One day, the vet gave Jennifer bad news. Riley was slowing down. Gaining weight. Losing mobility. The prognosis wasn't good, and the path forward wasn't clear.

Jennifer pushed back. "She's eating, she's drinking — something else is going on." The vet suggested a diet change, but the options on the shelf weren't going to cut it. So Jennifer — with 29 years in professional kitchens and a Physician Assistant certificate from Weill Cornell — went to work. She researched ingredients. She studied glycemic impact and fatty-acid chains. And she built a custom formulation in the same kitchen where she plated pastry for Michelin-starred meals.

Two weeks later, Riley was a different dog. Moving. Playing. Bright. When the vet saw her again, he called the turnaround remarkable — "a completely different dog." Not a small improvement. A full recovery, driven by food alone.

What the vet saw wasn't luck. It was nutrition built on science — by someone who understood both the craft and the biology.

Every biscuit we make traces back to that moment.

Three illustrated felted dogs playing together
Riley & the pack — our original taste-testers, and the reason this bakery exists.

The Craft

Michelin Star
Pastry Chef de Partie

Per Se · Chef de Partie · 3 Michelin Stars

Pastry Chef de Partie

Jennifer trained inside Per Se — a three-Michelin-star, six-James-Beard-Award New York kitchen. She served as a Pastry Chef de Partie on a ten-person pastry line, working every station in the program: puff pastry, chocolates, ice creams, mousses, candies, cookies.

That kitchen doesn't teach you to follow recipes. It teaches you why every technique exists. That's the difference between a baker who knows oat flour absorbs differently than wheat, and one who can tell you the protein structure that makes it happen.

29+ Years in the Kitchen

"The technique is Michelin. The care is for the people — and dogs — we love."

The Science

The Other Half
of the Story

Weill Cornell Medical College

Physician Assistant Certificate

Jennifer trained at Weill Cornell — one of the top medical institutions in the world. Pharmacology. Biochemistry. Physiology. Toxicology.

She doesn't just know that chocolate is bad for dogs. She can explain why theobromine metabolism differs in canines, why xylitol triggers a massive insulin cascade at just 0.1 grams per kilogram of body weight, and why dogs process treats on an eight-to-nine-hour timeline compared to our twenty-four-to-seventy-two. Every Bark formulation accounts for bioavailability, glycemic impact, and metabolic pathway.

This is the credential that makes "science-backed" verifiable, not aspirational.

Science-Backed Formulations

The Standard

Same Kitchen.
Same Standard.
Different Species.

Every Bark treat is made in the same licensed human-food kitchen as the Butter pastries. That's not a marketing line. Under AAFCO standards, dog treats made in a 21 CFR Part 117 compliant facility with human-edible ingredients automatically qualify as "human-grade" — the most powerful label in pet treats.

Human-grade by regulation. Not by marketing.

Illustrated felted-doll scene of a young man with his yellow Labrador beside a forest waterfall
Made for the families who treat their dogs like family.
Illustrated felted-doll scene of Chef Jennifer embracing a small dog
For the ones we love — two legs or four.

Giving Back

Born From
Love

Three years ago, Jennifer baked her way through a fundraising event for adults and children with learning disabilities. It wasn't a marketing moment. It was Tuesday.

Butter & Bark exists because Jennifer bakes for the people — and the pups — she loves. There's always room at the table for more.

The Promise

Safe to feed
the whole bag.

Every Bark treat is built on science: no sugar spikes, no hypoglycemic risk, portion-guided by a Physician Assistant who knows the 10% rule isn't optional. It's the permission slip that lets you actually enjoy treat time with your dog.

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