Junior bankers are leaving for pet food companies

It sounds like a parody, but it is not. After defeating thousands of people to get a first job in banking, juniors at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are leaving to work in the pet food industry.

The latest to go the banking-to-pet food route is Michael Rose, a former analyst in Morgan Stanley's UK M&A team. Rosen spent two years working for Morgan Stanley after leaving Warwick University in 2014. He clearly wanted to work in finance, but two years later he's off to Berlin to work as senior business manager for Pets Deli, a company which describes its mission as providing 'our four-legged customers with species-appropriate and healthy pet food'.

Rose is following in the footsteps of Kevin Glynn and David Nolan, a former Goldman Sachs associate and Goldman sales trader respectively, who quit the firm in March to set up Butternut Box, a healthy dog food delivery firm.

What makes pet food so popular? Rose didn't immediately respond to our enquiry, but Glynn and Nolan spelled it out to the Irish Independent in May. "People consider pets like a member of a family, and our whole ethos was they should be fed as such, and when we looked around, what we saw was that when you generally go into a supermarket, you'd be picking up a can of pet food beside a washing up detergent - there was no love behind it...," said Nolan. Basically, pet food was a neglected market.

Butternut box produces beef, chicken, turkey, lentil and flaxseed dog dishes that can be stored in the fridge. Pets Deli produces a range of foods that include ostrich cookies and bio spinach bites.

Banks are already struggling to retain their junior staff. Now they have new rivals to add to the private equity funds, hedge funds, and tech firms who want their 20-somethings.

Contact:SButcher@eFinancialCareers.com