Co-Founder & President, FRESHPET INC
Plant based pet food: Freshpet discusses the launch of vegan food for pets
Veganpetfood #plantbasedpetfood # Scott Morris, Freshpet Co-Founder, President and COO discusses his company's new ...... feed that family's best friend how about some vegan pet food let's bring in scott morris fresh pet co-founder president and ceo it's ...
About Scott Morris
In September 2022, Scott Morris, Co-Founder and President of Freshpet, discussed the company's launch of a plant-based pet food. Morris stated that the decision was driven by consumer research showing millennial and Gen Z consumers, who he said make up over half of the consumer base, are "very focused on sustainability," "animal ethics," and "the environmental impact." He noted that these demographics are vegetarians and vegans at twice the rate of older generations, and that Freshpet saw "a real opportunity to bring a plant-based product to market" using the same nutritional approach as its other products. Morris said the product was formulated with veterinarians and veterinary nutritionists and underwent feeding studies before launch. He described the initial rollout as beginning at Petco, with plans to expand to most of Freshpet's 27,000 retail refrigerators over the following year. Morris acknowledged the product is "slightly more expensive" due to development costs and early-stage production, but said the company aimed to keep it "affordable and accessible" to consumers seeking such an option.
Transcript (11 segments)
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Interviewer0:01
No need to tell you there has been a boom in the pet sector. People have been adopting dogs and cats, all kinds of pets. It started before the COVID-19 pandemic, but boy did it accelerate. Now what are you going to feed that family's best friend? How about some vegan pet food? Let's bring in Scott Morris, Freshpet co-founder, president, and CEO. It's good to have you here. I got to ask you, because I love dogs. I used to have a dog, 15 years with us. Back when we were choosing the food for the dog, we didn't want ash, we wanted animal proteins. Now it's shifting to vegan. Why vegan for animals, for the pets?
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Scott Morris0:38
Well, I think everyone is really focused on sustainability. What we have seen in so much of our research is, especially millennial and Gen Z consumers, they're over half of the consumer base at this point. They've really gotten awakened around the impact of farming meats. They're very focused on the animal ethics, the environmental impact, and they're actually vegetarians and vegans at two times the rate of the boomers and even the Gen Xers. So we just felt like there was a real opportunity to bring a plant-based product to market. We use the same nutritional ideology that we have on our feeds. We use fresh, natural, simple, less processed, no preservatives, and we're bringing this plant-based food to market.
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Interviewer1:27
Scott, you certainly are disrupting the industry when it comes to this. But what are you doing to get people on board with this idea? Because yes, some people would clearly opt to feed their pets vegan food, but I don't think everyone would initially think of vegan food when they're choosing what to buy their pet.
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Scott Morris1:44
Yeah, I think you're exactly right. I think there are a lot of people that are predisposed to it. We actually hear from people that are vegetarians and vegans. They really struggle. They know that they want to eat either a vegetarian or a vegan diet, and they're struggling with feeding their pets a plant-based food. So a lot of people are really predisposed to trying to find an alternative and a solution. Again, we've done pretty extensive consumer research to establish what the market opportunity is. As we bring this to market, we have a distribution network of over 27,000 refrigerators across the United States. We'll be placing our product in these refrigerators, and we'll definitely be doing, in addition to PR, digital and television marketing to let the marketplace know. Right now this is a single product, but the idea is over time plant-based foods become an entire portfolio of products for us.
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Interviewer2:39
Do animals digest plant-based protein the same way that they digest animal-based protein? And have you run this stuff through, I don't know the proper channel, but veterinarians, just to make sure the nutritional needs are being met?
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Scott Morris2:54
Yeah, that's a really key question. We've had this idea for several years, we've been working on it for quite a while. There are a lot of approaches that would not work for pets, so we have to make sure that when we're formulating something like this, we have the right amino acid profile in addition to the amount of protein that is healthy for a pet. So in addition to the formulation work, and we formulate this with vets and veterinary nutritionists, we also do pretty extensive feeding studies for a pretty long period of time. Some of those are with a panel of pets, and then we also use it with our own pets for pretty extended periods before we felt comfortable bringing a product like this to market.
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Interviewer3:35
And Scott, I was reading you're launching this in more than 900 Petco stores in the US beginning this month. Are you planning to expand that retail rollout, and what does that look like?
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Scott Morris3:45
Yeah, so this is really the very initial and the very beginning of the phase of the launch. It will start in Petco and it will continue to expand out to many, many of our retailers through next year. As I mentioned earlier, we're in 27,000 refrigerators that are our refrigerators at retail. We're in all the major retailers, and over time we anticipate that this should be in the vast majority of our refrigerator network across most of our retailer partners over the course of next year.
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Interviewer4:15
Real quick, price comparison. I'm thinking of the 20-pound bag of Eukanuba we used to buy for our dog. This is a different kind of food, but how does it compare to the other things that are out there that are not plant-based?
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Scott Morris4:29
This is slightly more expensive. Part of it is because of the work that we've done in developing it and that it's earlier stage, the way the product is produced. We are not looking to, we're trying to get it out to as many consumers as possible, so we're trying to make it affordable. It will be on the higher end of the market, but again, trying to keep it where it is affordable and accessible to as many consumers who want a solution like this is possible.
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Interviewer4:57
Well, it sounds like you are on to a winning formula. If your food can keep the dogs from getting into the garbage at night while everyone's asleep, you will have a huge success. Continued success, Scott Morris, Freshpet co-founder, president, and CEO. Thank you for joining us here.