Chicago pastry chef combines love for baking, animals to create pet food business
CHICAGO (CBS) — One pastry chef combined her skills and love for pets to form a business that's grown in popularity in Chicago and around the world.
Cosmicos Pet Bakery has been steadily building a fanbase around its pet treats because they resemble human food and are made with human-grade ingredients. They're super popular at Chicago farmers markets, and it all started with her having to work as a cook, pet sit, and dog walk just to make ends meet.
The eager faces and wagging tails don't lie.
Cosmicos Pet Bakery's pet treats are an instant hit with just about every furry friend who walks by, and their owners are never far behind.
Flocking around the color-loving mastermind behind these gourmet pet snacks, Kimberly Padilla.
"I'm the one making the cakes, making the cookies, packing the cookies, packing the orders, going to USPS to drop them off," she said. "I grind the chicken, I break down the fish. I do everything."
Padilla credits her popularity to the fact that the treats look like real food and are made of real food.
"I like to keep it like natural human grade, like ethically sourced, sustainable, you know, grass-fed. I modify the whole recipe to be able the dog to have it. So like, I can totally change things up."
Padilla knows her way around a kitchen thanks to culinary school in her hometown of Mexico City, and it was her first job after graduation that brought her to the Chicago culinary gauntlet.
"I even work in Michelin star restaurants, then I started trying more restaurants all over the city, and the pandemic hit, and I literally was like, what can I do?"
She began picking up odd jobs around the city — gigs like pet sitting, dog walking, and working as a pastry chef, just to make ends meet.
"But then I was like, why don't I put these two things together that I'm doing, my passion for animals and the love that I'm making for pastries?"
When she quit those jobs to focus on her pet bakery. Her coworkers couldn't believe it.
"They were thinking that I was joking. They were like, this is crazy. Like how you're going to make a living doing this?" Padilla said.
But one week before diving head first into the business.
"I got a DM from the farmers market manager from South Loup and she's like, hey, I have been following on Instagram, like, do you want to come and do farmer's market for me?"
And that changed everything.
"Because she's like, well, can you come next week? I didn't even have a table," Padilla said.
Since then, business has been going nonstop, and so has Padilla. She goes to seven markets a week, attends pop-up events, takes orders from all over the world, and does it all on her own.
Cosmicos Pet Bakery is always available online or at several local markets.