Dogfooding

What Does Dogfooding Mean?

The term "dogfooding" is an IT slang for the use of one's own products. In some uses, it implies that developers or companies are using their own products to work out bugs, as in beta testing. One benefit of dogfooding is that it shows that a company is confident about its products.

Techopedia Explains Dogfooding

The initial use of the term dogfooding is often traced back to Microsoft manager Paul Maritz, who, in 1988, used it to challenge Microsoft's internal employees to use the company's products.

For IT professionals, the phrase "eating your own dog food" means slogging through operations using internal products or looking at the source code. The other idea associated with dogfooding is that it offers developers a chance to solve product-related problems before releasing the product to consumers.