PET Food Processing - December 2019 - 10

TRENDS

Refrigerated and frozen
pet food options often cite
the no cooking or gently
cooked methods used to
offer nutritional benefits,
such as this product from
Open Farm that uses a
sous-vide process.
Open Farm

treats, Freshpet has had a couple different
platforms drive sales. "Our Freshpet rolls
are still a major seller across a variety of flavors, but in bagged meals, our Fresh from
the Kitchen Shredded Chicken Recipe and
Small Dog Bite Size Chicken Recipe have
really taken off over the past couple years,"
he says. "On the treats end, our turkey bacon
treats are our top seller."
Frozen yogurt treat-maker The Bear &
The Rat: Cool Treats for Dogs launched in
2010. The company's best-seller is its bacon
and peanut butter treat. "With The Bear
& The Rat's bacon and peanut butter frozen yogurt dog treats, consumers will find
real chunks of bacon - not a bacon flavor,
which has corn and/or soy in it (manufacturers don't have to declare the fine print,
when it comes to what's actually in flavors),"
says Meg Hanceford Meyer, co-founder and
president of the Hygiene, Colorado-based
company. "We pride ourselves on being a
treat comprised in a human-grade facility,
where ice cream is made, with real food that
humans eat," she adds.
Open Farm has been around for five years
and most of its business is in 3,500 North
American stores, Shuster says. What started as
a grain-free kibble brand, with turkey chicken
kibble as its No. 1 seller, has now expanded its
offerings to include a gently cooked fresh pet
food line that launched in 2019.
Open Farm's Gently Cooked Recipes line
combines minimally processed, humangrade ingredients that are cooked through a
gentle sous-vide process, Shuster says. "This
new product offers pet parents all the benefits of home cooking for their pets, without
the hassle," he says, adding that the full line
is available to pet specialty retailers in three
sizes: an 8-oz. trial size, a 16-oz. convenience
size and a 4.5-lb. bulk size that includes six
12-oz. servings.
Shuster says Open Farm suggests that
retailers rotate the different recipes in their
freezers to encourage customers to try the
different formulas to see which Open Farm
diet their dog likes best.

Cool with retailers
Trainor says Freshpet tries to make the process of delivering fresh pet food to retail customers and consumers as easy as possible.

PET FOOD PROCESSING | December 2019 | www.petfoodprocessing.net

"In the large majority of cases, we'll purchase
the refrigerator and help with most of the
leg work getting everything set up in store,"
he says. In fact, in November, Freshpet
CEO Billy Cyr told investors that the company continued to upgrade refrigerators and

"On shelf life,
we've done
a lot of work
to find the
right balance
between what
works for a
consumer and
what's realistic
for a fresh
product."
Jake Trainor, Freshpet

install units in new retail locations during
the third quarter of 2019, upgrading 174
stores from small or medium refrigerators
to large units, adding a second fridge to 31
stores, and adding fridges to 365 new stores,
bringing the company's total number of instore refrigerators to 20,779 at that time.
Hanceford Meyer says The Bear & The Rat
has struggled helping retailers acquire and
maintain freezers in stores. "Many independent pet stores have glass freezers that have
been subsidized by raw food companies,"
she says. "We have dabbled with selling our
own units and have had a lot of interest but
have found that there are many challenges
with selling freezers" she says, explaining
that the cost for a good unit far exceeds what
a customer typically wants to spend. Not to
mention, getting the unit to the customer
can be difficult.
Because raw food for pets has gained popularity in recent years, there are almost always
freezers in independent pet stores, Hanceford

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PET Food Processing - December 2019

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