Latest / The Growth Class with Phil Masiello / Sustainable Pet Treats: Turning Regenerative Farming Into Brand Growth with Stephen Calsbeek

Transcript

Sustainable Pet Treats: Turning Regenerative Farming Into Brand Growth with Stephen Calsbeek · The Growth Class with Phil Masiello

• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everybody and welcome back to the growth class.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: If you're a founder or an entrepreneur looking at scale, you already know that the product categories are the hardest to break into are the ones dominated by massive corporate conglomerates.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: The pet industry is exactly that.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Billions of dollars controlled by giant supply chains, vague marketing buzzwords, and mystery ingredients.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: But my guest today saw a massive gap in what corporate brands were selling, what modern consumers actually wanted.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Extreme radical transparency.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: So Stephen Cowsby is the co-founder and co-owner of Farmhounds.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: He spent over 15 years on the front lines of the pet industry running daycare facilities, boarding operations, building a four-store retail footprint in Atlanta.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: But in 2015, a conversation with a local farmer changed everything.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: They started dehydrating single-ingredient treats in home kitchen, partnering directly with small family farms, practicing regenerative uh agriculture.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: So today, Farmhounds is an Inc.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: 5000 honoree, a massive direct-to-consumer e-commerce brand, an independent retail powerhouse.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: That didn't scale through MT Applause or trendy marketing.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: They did it by mastering consumer psychology, building a business where the product line supports the financial help, the independent farmers, and turning an emotionally connected customer base into an absolute growth engine through word-of-mouth marketing.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Steven, thank you for taking the time to come on the show, and I appreciate it.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: I hope I did the intro okay for you.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, phenomenal.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having us.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: That was uh a clip worth saving for sure.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I appreciate the uh the warm welcome.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: My pleasure.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: My pleasure.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: So why don't you bring us back?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: I know I tried to uh explain the whole thing, but uh it's a little bit more complex.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: So why don't you just bring us back and explain how you got to where you are today and and what you were thinking and why you decided to pursue this path.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we've been doing dog stuff for a really long time.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, daycare boarding that led us into retail.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: We started to look at trying to really narrow in the focus of retail and and select things that were best for the dog, uh, make it easier for the pet parent to make the decisions because the ingredient labels are getting crazier and the marketing's getting trickier and the buzzwords are getting louder.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we started to really look at what's best for the dog, not what's best for a brand.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so we sort of made kind of a whole foods for dogs approach on the retail side.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were already kind of had our focus on that and looking at what's the best kind of foot forward for parents.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um a farmer did walk into one of our stores and said, Hey, I'm composting too much.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: That farm was White Oak Pastures and in Bluffton, Georgia.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um phenomenal farm.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you ever get a chance to go near Bluffton, Georgia, um, between Georgia and Florida, right there at the line, it's it's worth a stop and seeing sort of what they're doing is pretty incredible.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um they were looking at how much they were composting, and so they were asking us, like, what are our options?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so that got the gears turning on going, okay, you know, dogs love to chew, and we can get into the science of that.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's nutrient, nutrient-rich, beneficial.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so we started talking with them about okay, we could purchase raw materials from them, allow them to make more money per animal, allow them to hire more workers in the community, um, you know, and it honors the animal by not letting things, you know, just full-on move to compost.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so from there we we started to roll that product out and kind of test it in our own, you know, retail stores here in the Atlanta metro area, um, and then eventually realized that it had its own legs and and rebranded it as farmhounds and launched that as an e-commerce line.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: So when you say composting, um, are you are you talking about vegetation or are you talking about um awfuls like um Yeah, so they'll they'll take what can't go to human markets and they will put that back into the field.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: So from the blood to the bones to anything, they they will let that sort of compost back into the earth.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um regenerative agriculture is allowing animals to bring life back to the soil um by how the animals graze it, but also through compost and allowing um nutrients to return back to the soil.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so um there's definitely a need for compost, but not to the level in which that they were like, hey, we feel like we're potentially losing an opportunity to to sell some of this product.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: So things like trachea, ears, you know, snouts, um, you know, you name it, we can we can dehydrate it and turn it into a chew for dogs.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: So Yeah, and and and I'm sure the dogs like it.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: I know my dogs uh I have one I have one dog that likes to actually uh go out there and get uh live animals.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he you know when we first moved into this house we had um we we live three miles outside the city, but you would think we were in the country.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: We're in the woods and it's and it's great for the dogs.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: We live on a dead end street, they just roam free.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: And um and when we first moved in, the chip the chipmunks, the squirrels, uh woodchucks, they would get close to the house.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: We had a woodchuck underneath the shed, things like that.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now you won't find them within a hundred yards of the house.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: My my uh older dog, those were all on his bucket list, man.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: He he was just a maniac.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I I used to try and stop him, but there was just no, there's just no stopping him.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: He was gonna do what he was gonna do.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: The first time it happened, you know, I'm calling I'm screaming on the vet.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, my dog just ate a chipmunk.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And she's like, well, just make sure it passes.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, yeah.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: We we it there's that instinct is gonna be there for some dogs where they just absolutely the carnivores there, they they want to get that, you know, that that prey drive is there.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um the name of our company, Farmhounds, is from visiting White Oak pastures and seeing their dogs just sitting out on the front porch, just working on a big piece of raw beef heart that had just come right off the slaughterhouse floor.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, White Oak's really unique because they have their abattoirs, their slaughterhouses are on the property.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, they're actually doing all of their slaughtering in-house.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of those, you know, organs and things that again aren't going to human markets, they would just toss one out to their their farm dogs and just let them and that dog happy as can be for sure.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm sure.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: I have uh I have two uh pointers and uh along with um this this other dog, and the pointers don't eat um the prey, but they love to hunt.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's so funny to see the three of them because the older guy he can't chase like he used to, but he tears it apart.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And they like they'll secure whatever it is, chipmunks, squirrels, woodchuck, whatever it is for him, and then let him pounce and rip it apart.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it's amazing to me.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's hysterical, but they are happy dogs when they're doing that.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they they they are as as gross as it is for me to watch him rip apart an animal, it's uh they are happy doing it.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: They think it's like the greatest thing in the world.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: So But yeah, I mean, all that stuff is it's part of their instinct, like you said, but it's also it's also good for them.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it it's part of uh uh what's good for them to uh to digest.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know all that uh all that processed food, like the kibble and stuff, which they need because it has nutrients that they're not gonna get from just you know natural or just from eating regular, you know, food.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um so it's good for them.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we we definitely take an approach for our treats and chews.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we're not uh a diet, we're not making a diet for a company, you know, for dogs.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: We are just treats and chees.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we're definitely on the supplemental end, but we still take an approach there to just do it as clean as we possibly can.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you look at ingredient panels for pet, it is it is very complicated.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's tons of preservatives, there's tons of vitamins that get added on top of whatever's being cooked and those types of things.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so we took an approach to just take the raw, simply dehydrate it.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's no preservatives, there's no chemicals, there's no additional fillers or, you know, if you're getting beef heart, it's 100% beef heart.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um we put the farm on the front.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's one thing we didn't really cover yet.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Is that for us, transparent sourcing, we're deliberately transparent, is one of the things we like to say.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, every bag you buy from us, you're gonna know the exact farm you're supporting and exactly where it's coming from.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, we're big on, hey, where does it come from?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can trust the product, you can visit that farm.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of our customers recognize the farms because they live in the areas.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we have about 25 different farm partners across the country that as we grow, we're constantly adding more farms um to get more raw ingredients in the door.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: But but keeping things clean is like one of the number one reasons customers connect with us and stay with us is they can trust that when it's one ingredient, there's nothing funny about it.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's no extra, you know, buzzwords that are trying to, you know, make things more profitable for us and less nutritious for the dog.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a good combination.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And how'd you build the business?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've definitely uh built this business sort of one day at a time.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um as we get into a building, we would fill it up and run out of space and need more dehydrators, you know, more power capacity.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we've kept the process in-house from the raw ingredient that comes in the door to the package that goes out to the end consumer, um, which is really unique for a company our size.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're not using another company to make our product and then white labeling it and packaging it and shipping it out.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's we have the relationship with the farm.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: We know what we're ordering from that farm partner.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we receive the raw, we're breaking it down, um, we're bagging that product by hand and shipping it out to the end consumer.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: So because we get to control the entire process, we can keep the farm very, very specific.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: So if we get something from Joyce Farms out of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, I can track that all the way down to where we're bagging it and shipping that to customers so that that farm partner label stays true to the exact product that it came from.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: So No, I was gonna say, you know, what what I'm what I was getting at was, I mean, I understand building the operations, but you know, you built a healthy uh business online.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: How'd you get the customers?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh how'd you build that pipeline?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because you weren't doing it from paid ads.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't I mean, maybe you were, but uh, it couldn't have been all paid ads.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: You would have gone sort of broke, I think.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: So the the customer pipeline was interesting for us.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: As we were growing, it started very, very small.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and, you know, we had a little post-purchase survey asking customers, sort of, you know, hey, how'd you find that about us?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And like 80% of our traffic was word of mouth.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we were lucky enough to have our retail stores sort of getting that product out the door.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so we had a kind of an avenue from a retail perspective that kind of got us started.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we started doing farmers markets, you know, trying to kind of do the kind of ground roots sort of style.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then we noticed that just word of mouth, word of mouth, word of mouth.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we just started adding in more samples and we made little cute little tags that say for the neighbor dog and make it really easy for people to share with people.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And um about 80% of our traffic was returning customers.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so people just connecting to us, realizing we had some integrity and we had some transparency that they really, you know, believed in.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then they sort of stuck with us.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um when COVID hit, we actually hit our first giant spike as people began to get dogs, shop online.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we were able to sort of position our site and and work on some things that allowed us to rank really well.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we hit just some organic growth that was just sort of crazy for us.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we started to dip our toe a little bit in ad spend at that point um to try to really keep the momentum going.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we went, I need to find the analytics, but it was like an insane from this many orders per year to like triple.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it was sort of like, okay, hang on, let's just try to make this work.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that sort of pushed us into a larger building, and we started to really look at it this from like a long-term approach and sort of brace for continual growth, which has been fun.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was talking to another uh founder this morning who was talking about their business during COVID, and they said, you know, they spiked and they thought uh everything was great, and then right after COVID ended, they've just they they plummeted.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think that there were a lot of companies that did, but not all.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh people in the food space, people in the pet space, you know, those customers uh recur, but we they were more in the uh in a specialty sort of pace space.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember for us as an agency when we um uh when we went through COVID, I mean, we lost clients because not because uh they couldn't do anything, but they had supply chain issues that one company was a beauty company, they had a manufacturing facility in Florida, and the state of Florida said, you're not you're not producing what you think you're producing, you're gonna start producing hand sanitizer for us.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: And they sort of made them do that.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: And uh but then they also, you know, the orders that came that that they expected to come in from other suppliers.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh anyway, I don't want to go through COVID uh thing, but what I said was my point was that you know it was sort of up and down for a lot of people.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the pet industry did quite well.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: I know from my perspective, um it it it helped grow and then it maintained and kept growing because people sort of found they needed to feed their pets.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: They couldn't get it, you know, through the normal channels.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so they started to find other places and all and and they they found other products and then they stuck with those products.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I know.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And they got it, and they got a dog, and that dog stuck around because they, you know, became part of the family.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we're seeing that as, you know, generationally, you know, dogs are part of the family more than they ever were.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, they're they are kind of children, right?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And in a lot of ways, where it's like, all right, what is, you know, I know what I'm doing to myself when I go buy a carton of ice cream, you know.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: But when your dog doesn't get that opportunity to make those decisions for themselves, like that's when it's like as a parent, I'm like, all right, let me know what I'm feeding you, let me let me make sure I'm investing in your future and in and health.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so more and more people are flipping bags, looking at ingredient panels.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: They want to know where stuff comes from.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so we hit sort of a great little spot where we're a good treat and chew company that that can solve a lot of problems for you.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: So absolutely.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think that treats are, you know, an important segment because everybody gives their dog treats, but nobody wants the garbage treats, right?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, milk bones, you know, I'm not nothing against milk bones.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Some people love them, but you know, you you look at the ingredients, it's just not healthy necessarily for your dog.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: We try and give our dogs, I give my dogs a lot of broccoli, cooked broccoli, green beans, Brussels sprouts.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: They love them.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we use those as treats because, you know, you can get into the situation.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: We have one dog that we rescued, and she she was running, she was a runner.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: She would chase anything, and we wanted to make sure that she always came back.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that our trainer told us was, you know, blow this whistle.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: When she comes back, you've got to give her a high value treat.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: So every time now she's trained, every time she goes out and comes back in, she wants she expects a treat.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: That could get you into trouble if you're giving them high calorie treats.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why we give them like broccoli and Brussels sprouts and things like that.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: But then we always wind up giving them, you know, some sort of a jerky uh type treat because of dehydrated product type treat, because um, you know, it's good for them.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: They love it.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: It it it uses it takes up a lot of time for them to, you know, sit and eat it.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's not something that they can just gobble down.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: But um, yeah, my dogs are uh uh spoiled.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Very, very spoiled.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's what we do, man.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's the funny thing about having I have two dogs, two cats, and and it's a really fun opportunity when you're able to get a really cool bag of organ meat, something that is a nutrient-dense, you know, powerhouse of a of a treat, and you put it in front of their nose, and then this light bulb goes off, and they're like, all right, what do I gotta do to get that?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you can take them on hikes, you can do just general rewards because you want to just say, hey, I love you.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: But when you see that kind of parent go through the light bulb moment of like giving them something that connects to their DNA, of like, hey, instinctually they want to sit down and chew.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Instinctually they want to, you know, eat as much organ, you know, as they can because that's where the nutrition is stored.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's sort of fun to give them something that just gets them triggered.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: So well, yeah.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was uh a couple of years ago, I used to do triathlons and I was out with one dog, and I was they we went on a run, and uh, she went running with me probably, you know, a couple of six miles or so.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And when she came back, when she came back, it was the early Saturday morning, and I was cooking bacon and eggs.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I put it on the plates and I put it down on the floor for the dogs, and my kids were like, Oh my god, I thought he was cooking for us, he's cooking for the dogs.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's uh I uh I take things to the extreme with my dogs, I think, at some point.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my kids think anyway, because Yeah, it's always fun to spoil them for sure.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I can agree with that.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:16
  unknown: Yeah.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: We get to bring our dogs.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, go ahead.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say we get to bring our dogs to work, and so it he's not here today, but he'll sleep right across from my desk, and every once in a while he'll go walk out and check with staff and they'll give him crumbs and he'll come back with something and just you know, self-serve happy as can be, just working on a trachea or an esophagus or something.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it's uh Yeah.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: No, I I've I've been taking my dogs to work with me since they were, you know, babies.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, we have anybody who works in our office, if they want to bring their dog or cat to work, they do it.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the dogs all, you know, for some my I have one dog just loves cats.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: I I can never figure out.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: My daughter rides horses and there's barn cats.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: Barn cats are a different kind of cat, man.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Those things don't mess around.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: And like he just he loves them and he just walks up to them and they just sit there and look at them and they'll go, smack.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't get he doesn't get the uh he doesn't get discouraged.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: He just keeps going back and you're going, dude, man, the cat's not uh the cat doesn't want me to snuggle.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so it's funny.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um so what are some of the challenges you faced go uh building that business?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Because obviously it couldn't have all been rosy.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um what's unique?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, I guess any manufacturer is gonna run into this where you're trying to create kind of consistent slow growth because of the way we source, you know, it could take six months to add a farm partner because they've got to check with their USD inspectors for capturing materials and and shipping lanes and raw materials and all of that stuff.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, as we grow, we've got to make sure we add farms, you know, to manage that.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so understanding our inventory, you know, a farmer might send us a palette.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a mixed palette of a different bunch of different ingredients that have to get sort of broken up.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so us sort of learning our own inventory and how that flows, and then when we need to reach out to farmers to add more and you know, making sure that I don't do anything that like creates a spike in growth that, oh my gosh, now we've got, you know, you know, a hundred thousand, you know, people you know, traveling the site because we, you know, went viral on a post or something like that that could just throw everything off kilter.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so trying to grow slow and consistently has been an interesting thing where we're just trying to, which is always a weird approach to like, hey, yeah, we don't want to just blow the doors off on the sales side because then it would just disrupt the whole process.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's one of those unique things of just trying to make sure it's a slow, you know, and steady kind of process.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, telling our story is another one where we are taking a high road.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're not the cheapest, you know, treat brand on the shelf.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we pay our farm partners a really fair price going into it.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: We were like, hey, you know, this is what you can actually charge us because we know what this is worth.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so we sort of built a relationship with our farmers to say, like, hey, we want to make sure this whole process benefits the farms.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's the sort of lifeblood of what we're doing is we're connecting people to these farmers that are doing the the hard work really.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it's there's not an easy process.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: We when you get on a farm, you know, it's from day, you know, from sunup to sundown, they're working their tails off.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's no off days.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so we make sure we take care of them.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, understanding that process for our customers to say, hey, if you want to know where stuff comes from, you want a really clean product, this is what we think it's worth.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it and sort of sticking to that, you know, authenticity line and kind of going, hey, and then we found our customer base that that believes in that and sort of wants that.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: So um, it's not been easy to make sure that our story gets, you know, comes across and trying to make sure our website tells the story and that we've got education information.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a long way still to go, even though we've been doing this for so long, we're still trying to update and keep keep sort of a modern approach to our website when it comes to you know CRO and SEO and those kind of things.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: So trying to stay relevant is always one of those challenges where I'm I'm spending half of my day trying to update our website and then half of our day managing the operation side of things.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: So are you subject to USDA inspection or just the farmers?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Department of Ag, um, because we are not um a food, we are a supplemental treat.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: So the regulation is a little different for us.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: All of our farm partners are USDA regulated.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: These animals are being raised for human consumption.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so there is that process of like we are purchasing, you know, human grade is a is a somewhat of a buzz term.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit of a funny word because if I'm buying a turkey head from a farm, that's not, you know, a human grade.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's raised for human consumption, but the ingredient itself is classified as like inedible, even though it's totally an awesome chew for a dog to work on.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but that being said, yes, all of our farms do have a USD inspector that is um that is managing their progress.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then we have to work to make sure we can get approval.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: To get it.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it changes throughout the cust, you know, country.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: There are some farms where we can purchase lung from a, you know, um because their USD inspector has allowed it.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or some farms are like, nope, we're not allowed to capture that and sell it to you because our USD inspector said, you know, it's ineligible.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, okay, what do I got to do to get it?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how can we, you know, so that's where you can work and argue, and it can be down to the specific individual that has decided that it's not, you know, allowed to be captured.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a little bit of a challenge.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: So but you don't have to fall under USDA.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't need uh an inspector on premises like they do.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: You uh so Department of Agriculture, what do they do for you?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Do they inspect you or just inspect your packages or inspect make sure that you're you know they'll come in and do a walkthrough and make sure we have you know everything up to their standards.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so there is a level of regulation there that when it comes to just how we're storing things and where things are and how you know the process that the raw moves through the building and the finished product moves through the building and there's no cross-contamination and those kind of things.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so there are some very, you know, very not basic, but there's some standards that we do that do get applied to us.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um not the level that is for um, you know, the the diet.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Once you step into diet, then you're looking at actual formulas and and claiming like, hey, this will keep a dog scientifically alive.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have to back up those claims, where for us it's just supplemental.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so there's different regulations there.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: But so what is what does growth look like for you?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we have a couple different sales channels.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we do have our products on Amazon that is a customer base that we're still trying to study and learn and try to figure out a little bit.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And no matter how hard we try to get that customer off Amazon and shop with us directly, it's sort of impossible.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we sort of bit the bullet and have built a storefront there.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, for just our bag products, we don't do our hides or our chews or our toppers.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that's sort of our way, a little bit of staying unique to our our you know, direct to customer side is that you can get more products from us.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that store has continued to grow consistently.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we've we've seen success there, just keeping stuff in stock and it it kind of naturally grows.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we do wholesale, so our wholesale department is also another avenue that we move product out the door.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we have about 800 independent retailers across the country that do sell our products uh in their own storefronts, and that's you know, super exciting to always hear and see that kind of naturally growing.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then our D2C side is our biggest avenue, so which is people getting on farmhouse.com and purchasing and so sort of keeping that consistent growth um, you know, fluctuates between, you know, 10, 15%, you know, year over year.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're trying to get that consistently, you know, holding in that position.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, years, you know, summer, you know, seasonal swings are always interesting because I always feel like it changes a little bit based on what's going on.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but um we do have some peaks and valleys where we know that July is always one of our biggest months because of the sale we run and things like that.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: So um it's kind of just tread water and kind of keep doing what we're doing, you know, hold to our, you know, our lane, do what we do best, you know.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Try not to we call it chasing ghosts when you go, oh, we could, you know, launch a new product or do this.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, no, no, we know what we're good at.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let's stay in that lane.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um customers want us to add fish and do things like that.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, you know, it's like, oh man, we'd love to do different things, but because of the way we source, we want to know that the farm is front and center for us.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, there's certain things we just can't, you know, step into because they're not connected to regenerative ag things like that.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Are you uh FBA or FBM with Amazon?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're doing both.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if FBA turns off, FBM takes over.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so the order will still flow um into our building and we'll still ship it out.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um but FBA is the main source.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: So all right.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're just about out of time.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Any uh any parting words?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Where can people find you?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what's the website?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, farmhounds.com, um f-a-r-m, h-o-un d s.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we have a great website.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of different products.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you're looking for treats, chews, hides, you know, toppers, all of those fun things, you're gonna be able to find it on our website.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um we do free shipping if you place a$75 order or more.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um try to make that as easy as possible.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're not getting hit with shipping charges, things like that.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: So um 100% guarantee, try something if you're not happy with it.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we know some dogs can be picky with stuff.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: We don't typically get a lot of returns for picky behavior because our stuff is super, super clean.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: But um, if you're looking for a really clean treat, we'd love to have you as a customer.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: So that's great.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think it's a fantastic, uh I think it's a fantastic business.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly taking a different approach.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: I love the fact that you're not uh you're focused more on uh taking making sure that everybody in the supply chain is satisfied and not driving the lowest price.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think that's important because I think too many times people mistake trying to drive volume uh with lower in the price, and it it winds up hurting them.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm a big fan of getting value throughout the supply chain so that everybody wants to continue to work with you.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it was a great discussion.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you taking the time to come on and uh good luck in the future.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Appreciate it.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.