Starting a Dog Treat Company From Scratch

Issue #59

April 23rd, 2024

Quick Hits:

🧮 This adorable dog knows math…no, really!

🏰 What did people name their dogs in medieval times?

🐱 Declawing cats - soon to be illegal in Virginia

🌳 The bush goblin is an invasive species - watch the entire doggumentary to learn more

This week, we hand the reins over to Ashlin Cook, the co-founder & CEO of Winnie Lou. Her entrepreneurial journey is one that any founder will be able to relate to and her story and experience are worth reading and sharing.

Backstory

All my life, I begged for a dog. Growing up, I remember making PowerPoint presentations for my parents, thinking that if I asked for nothing else, they would have no choice but to get me a dog for my birthdays. I was wrong, and they never got me a dog (plays tiny violin). However, as soon as I graduated college, I knew that was my first move. 

In February 2016, I brought home my first dog, Winston. Like most overzealous, first-time pet parents, we went to the pet store to find treats for training. To my disappointment, I was in the aisle, googling ingredients on my phone. Why were glycerin, cane sugar, and preservatives included in every bag of treats? These fillers are cheap, highly processed, and provide zero nutritional value. Speaking to fellow pet parents, I realized there was a mystery around pet treats. No one felt confident in what was good, bad or even how to pronounce their ingredients.

Being passionate about natural products, it didn’t add up why the principles of human nutrition weren’t translating to pet.

I was inspired - to take away the mystery and empower consumers to feel confident in their pets’ treats. No more Google searches or settling for the least offensive option. Just a short simple ingredient lists that make our customers feel like they won. We were going to create products that provided more answers than questions. 

The Start of Winnie Lou

My inspiration manifested itself in a solar-powered food truck for dogs a few years later. For the first year and a half of Winnie Lou, I was sourcing ingredients directly from farmers I found at our local farmers market and creating treats in a local commissary kitchen. Then, on the weekends, I would drive our food truck around to dog parks, breweries, and farmers markets, meeting pet parents where they were at and spreading the power of clean animal nutrition. 

Named after our dogs, Winston & Louis, Winne Lou crafts simple, unique, and high-quality treats using thoughtfully sourced ingredients. Over 34% of dogs deal with chicken & beef allergies. With that in mind, we focus on wild, grass-fed, and novel proteins such as elk, bison, and wild boar. These proteins are leaner, cleaner, and more nutrient-dense than conventionally raised chicken and beef.

We source from our network of local ranchers and producers, who raise animals that live more humane lives outside of confinement and feed mainly on grass or things natural to the Earth.

Growing Pains

One of the biggest hurdles we faced in the first few years was keeping up with demand. Good problem to have, right? Sure. However - you only get one chance at a first impression. And our first impression after our first Superzoo was that it took us 3.5 months to fulfill orders. This couldn’t go on much longer if we were going to continue growing. 

At this point, all focus was turned to manufacturing. We looked at co-packers, but they all wanted us to add in the same old fillers and preservatives that every other brand did to make manufacturing easier. We weren’t willing to give up what made us different. That is when we turned back to self-manufacturing. After many failed attempts, we found a solution and a customized machine to make our treats. We brought in this machine about 5 months later, and soon grew out of the small commissary turned private kitchen we were operating in.  

We built our manufacturing facility in Boulder in 2022, where we self-manufacture all of our products. This allows us to maintain consistent quality, be nimble with production runs, and not have to oversee co-packers.

Our hero products are - Bison Burger Jerky, Peanut Butter Pretzels, and Bison Heart Cat Treats.

The Market

Dog and cat consumables brought in over $58B in the US alone in 2022, an increase of 51% since 2018 (APPA). The trend of humanizing our pets is seeing consumers spending more on premium and natural products.

No longer just a food truck for dogs, Winnie Lou sells in over 1,200+ retail locations across the US and Canada, Rens Pets, Tomlinson’s, Mud Bay, and more. 

Growth

Our growth strategy since the beginning has been to meet our customers where they are. Every customer has a place where they shop, and they don’t switch between channels for their pet products often. People are driven by habit and routine. Therefore, we need our products to be in a place where people encounter them during their routine. While doing this, it is always important to not compete with price between channels. We prioritize our independent pet stores over all else, and in the rest of our channels, consumers have to pay a higher price for convenience. 

The Future

As we look to the future, we have exciting innovations in our pipeline. We just debuted our new “Crisps” line of clean, novel protein treats at price points 40% lower than our current jerky offerings. Primed perfectly for cross-conventional retail, they enable us to win with a wider income demographic. This opens us up to many retailers that may have not been the best fit for us previously due to price. Our mission is to get more clean treats into more homes, this provides us a clear pathway to do so. 

Pet owners' top priorities are product quality, affordability, and convenience, and we will be the best combination of all three.

The Daily Grind

The day-to-day as a founder is everchanging. Every morning, I meet with Melissa, our VP of Sales, and my right hand. Once we have our respective marching orders for the day, I check with the team at our facility and make sure everything is on track with production and outstanding orders. I then check in with our operations manager to ensure all is good with ingredient inventory, fulfillment, and logistics. I take anywhere from 2-5 calls a day for miscellaneous purposes, and then I get to reply to emails and handle all marketing tasks. There is always something excitingly stressful that comes up that we need to deal with, but overall the days are quite a fun rollercoaster of seeing what comes up. 

Science shows that diet is a major factor in our pet’s health span, and unfortunately, our pets don’t have a say in what they eat. So, it is up to us to make the right choices for them. That is why we started Winnie Lou. To make that choice easy. So, join us at Winnie Lou, where we dare you to read our ingredient lists and treat your pets with transparency over mystery!

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Q: You bootstrapped your business; why? What have been the benefits of running your business this way?

A: Control. We knew what we wanted to build and how we wanted to build it. We wanted to stay true to our mission over the bottom line to ensure our brand and products differed. That is how we were able to establish lasting trust with our customers. We also worked tirelessly to build Winnie Lou to where it is today. While raising capital may still be part of our journey at some point, we’ve now proven out that products as clean as ours have a want and a need in this industry. I think we traded off accelerated growth for longevity and sustainable growth. 

Q: Why did you decide to build your own manufacturing facility vs using a co-packer? What are some pros and cons?

A: As mentioned above, we did explore our options, and I think there are strong arguments to make for both. We spent most of our capital on manufacturing over marketing for years. This was certainly a trade-off and forced us to grow slower. However, we can be quick to market with new products, be nimble with production runs (no expiring product or massive MOQs), and we can oversee quality constantly. 

Q: Biggest takeaways of being a vendor at multiple pet expos? How important are they if you want to get your name out there?

A: I think tradeshows are super important, but I don’t think you need to be at every one. Tradeshows are only as good as the people attending them, so depending on the product you are putting into the market and the channels you are selling them through, not every show makes sense. 

You reached the end, you deserve a treat 🍖

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Finally, Why do dogs tend to run in circles?

Because it's really hard to run in squares.

See you Thursday!