Guinea pigs: Businesswoman left full-time job to pursue creating a guinea pig company - Piggie Parcels

Amanda Beamish, 46, has kept guinea pigs most of her life and she ‘absolutely loves them’ – this love was the driving force behind her creating her own business five years ago.

Piggie Parcels was established back in 2018 and Amanda set her sights on making sure that guinea pigs are fed the most natural ingredients rather than foods that are not necessarily in the animals’ best interest.

Amanda offers her customers advice and recommendations on what natural forage food is best based on their guinea pig’s individual needs.

Not only does the business owner hand pack each ‘piggie parcel’, but she also launched her very own piggie pellet last November which consists of camomile and dandelion. She spent over 18 months researching the best natural ingredients to make sure that the guinea pigs come first over finances.

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She said: ‘I have kept guinea pigs as pets for the past 30 years so quite a long time and I absolutely love them, I am obsessed with them and it was about five years ago when I realised that when you have guinea pigs a lot of people go to pet shops and buy things for them but they are not necessarily the best things to buy for them so I have done a lot of research over the past 15 years about what would be best for them and what they would have in the wild – I thought ‘this is a business idea’.

‘I started it as a hobby and I thought if it doesn’t work out then my guinea pigs will have a lot of good food to eat.’

Amanda’s business has been doing well since it was established and she decided to leave her full time job to pursue her business.

She has since been nominated Best Pet Related Business in the Animal Star Awards and there will be an awards night at a local hotel in Portsmouth.

She added: ‘I was so pleased when I made it through as a finalist with these awards because there were so many nominations so I didn’t think I was going to make it through.’