Paul Iams, who was the first to spot the marketing niche for high-end, high nutrient pet foods, died October 26 in Chappaqua, at age 89, the Iams Food Company announced. The Dayton, Ohio, company, now owned by Procter and Gamble, is the leading producer of veterinarian-blessed kibble, with more than $800 million in sales in 77 countries in 2002.

Iams, a native of Dayton, was a state champion tennis player in 1933 who became interested in the pet-food business a few years later while working with his father, Harry, a grain broker.

In 1938, Iams went to work for Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble, where he worked as a soap salesman before joining the Navy for World War II. When he returned from the war, he raised about $5,000 to start an animal feed company at the Tipp City Feed Mill in Dayton.

During the early 1950s, Iams began selling feed to mink ranchers. In a story he told many times, he noted that the ranch dogs who ate the mink food developed unusually glossy coats. Thus was born the notion of specialty pet foods. Iams immediately spent $71 on animal nutrition books and began improving his product, according to a 1987 interview with “Dayton-Spring field Business Life.” The company still does a significant business with mink ranchers, the company says.

He opened his first manufacturing plant in Dayton with five employees. The first product, for dogs, he named Iams 999 – “to imply that it was nearly perfect,” he said. Most of his customer base included dog breeders and veterinarians.

Iams exercised complete control of his products, down to the somewhat idiosyncratic purple-and-green packaging. When the company introduced a new line of foods, Iams dubbed it “Eukanuba,” a term the company claimed was 1940s slang popularized by Hoagy Carmichael that meant “supreme.”

The company grew during the 1960s and 1970s, and by the time Iams sold the company to his protege, Clay Mathile, in 1982, it had $16 million in annual sales, mainly in the Midwest. The company named an animal-research facility for Iams in 1987.

Under Mr. Mathile, Iams sought national growth far more aggressively, and it reached the $500 million mark in sales in 1996. Mr. Mathile, who frequently appears on the Forbes 400 richest Americans list, sold Iams to Procter & Gamble for $2.3 billion in 1999.

Under Procter & Gamble, Iams has continued to prosper as the consumer giant has sought synergies. One, “Dental Defense,” is a line of pet foods that combines Crest toothpaste with dog food.

Iams retired to Sun City West, Ariz., where he lived until a month ago.