Today we’d like to introduce you to Karen Neola.
Karen, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
After enjoying a successful career at Hewlett-Packard, my plan was to leave the corporate life and focus on activities I enjoyed, including spending more time doing volunteer service with my therapy dogs. Both of my dogs became suddenly ill late 2006, and my beautiful Hunter crossed over the Rainbow Bridge on January 3, 2007. Within weeks of his passing headlines began announcing the largest pet food recall in history. I learned that I had been poisoning my ‘kids’ by feeding them food that I had believed to be safe and healthy.
The more I studied and researched the pet food industry, the more horrified – and angry – I became. I vowed never again to purchase commercial pet food and began home cooking for my Roxy, and within a few weeks, she seemed healthier than she had in years. I found myself driven by a passion to form a company that put pet health over profits and educates pet owners on how to make better food choices for their pets. I studied every animal nutrition guideline I could find and solicited advice from animal nutritionists, universities teaching animal nutrition, and veterinarians who had studied animal nutrition.
My goal was not to second guess the animal nutrition experts, but to formulate diets that delivered the maximum nutrition using species-appropriate whole fresh foods – I left animal health to the experts and focused on engineering what went into the bowl. While my initial intent was to keep it small and simple, I found I had a growing list of customers across the U.S. The category “cooked frozen” did not exist when I started, but I was concerned about co-mingling raw meat with my own foods and also about the safety of raw meat for my ‘kids’.
So I decided to bake the meat to the minimum temperatures recommended by FDA for human food safety, and add fresh raw vegetables, combining the benefits of raw with the safety of gently cooked. I set the food safety bar at the same level as my own food, using the same guidelines and safety standards as human food processing. Being a home cooker myself, I understood the challenges of not only cooking balanced diets, but also in freezing, storing, and thawing enough food to keep hungry dogs happy without feeling like I was a full-time dog food chef.
An estimated 17% of pet parents now home cook all or part of their pet’s food, and they will only purchase food they believe to be as good as their own from a company they can trust. Cooked frozen is now a rapidly growing category in the fresh pet food segment. My Perfect Pet is now operating in a 14,000 square foot facility in Poway, with distribution to retailers in 21 states, and online shipping to all 50 states. We are preparing for expanded distribution in 2019.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Starting a business has led me down many paths and none of them I would describe as easy! A strong corporate background has proven invaluable in starting and running my own business, but I have had to become an expert in every field – marketing, sales, manufacturing, quality control, purchasing, customer service, accounting, and especially finance – I was a math major so not afraid of numbers but I had no idea the extent to which my life would be controlled by finance. The expression “jack of all trades, master of none” is cute but terrifying when you know your business success depends on your ability to master them all to the degree necessary to succeed.
I also had no idea the extent to which starting a business would consume my life.
Fortunately, in my case My Perfect Pet has been the perfect blending of career and passion – I am committed to improving pet health through education and nutrition, and to making the healthiest and most nutritious pet food for my own kids and everyone else’s. While weekends and vacations are spent attending pet-related events, trade shows, account calls, etc., most of these are pet-friendly and so I can take my ‘kids’ almost everywhere I go. I have stopped trying to find that elusive balance of “work” and “home” and am now viewing my commitment to pets and their people as one big happy place where I can make a difference.
If you are looking for detailed ‘challenges’ I am happy to elaborate.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about MY PERFECT PET – what should we know?
If I had to choose one word it would be “integrity”. I do believe integrity is the one thing you do take with you in the end, and it is one thing I will never compromise. It is at the top of our core values at My Perfect Pet.
Our mission has been to educate pet parents on how to make healthier choices for their pets – if we make healthier food choices we will have healthier pets. When My Perfect Pet started in 2007, pet owners had 2 choices: 1) highly processed dry/canned, or 2) raw. My Perfect Pet was the pioneer of cooked frozen diets for pets, blending the advantages of fresh whole raw foods with the safety of cooked meats, a process which is now endorsed by FDA, AAHA (American Animal Hospital Association) and AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association).
My Perfect Pet was the first company to publish guarantees for every nutrient in the AAFCO nutrient profiles – something we are able to do because we use human grade foods and our blends can be substantiated by USDA. Transparency has been our signature from the start, in fact at our last facility we had windows that allowed visitors to observe the manufacturing operation from the lobby – another first in the commercial pet food industry.
For over 10 years My Perfect Pet has led the effort to educate pet owners on the importance of understanding pet food labels, researching every ingredient, and looking beyond the label at the company behind the products. We have encouraged pet owners to replace blind trust with education and knowledge about what is really in the food they are feeding their pets. We continue to encourage pet parents to demand clean label products from companies they can trust.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Well, if we go way back I would first thank my parents for nurturing my love for animals from an early age and indulging me when I brought home countless strays – I was always known as “Karen’s Reject Animal Farm” because there were no species, from dogs and cats to bugs, that I didn’t feel was worth saving. I wouldn’t be here today without a number of friends and family members who have helped, encouraged, supported, and even loaned money to help the business get started and grow.
We have a rock star team at My Perfect Pet. We are small, but every employee is fiercely proud of what we do and committed to the integrity of our company and our products.
They recognize that what we do is unique, pet food made with human food standards, with no ingredient that we aren’t willing to eat ourselves – and our mixer takes a bite of every batch before it is frozen and packaged.
Most of our cheerleaders have been pet parents who begged me to continue every time I considered slowing down or stopping. Every time I thought about getting out of the business someone would tell me what an amazing difference our food made in their pet’s health, or even their life, and that’s why I have never quit – because no one else is doing it the way we are.
I also appreciate the store owners who gave us a chance and carried our products even before cooked frozen was a recognized category – some of those first accounts remain our biggest advocates.
My heartfelt thanks extend to everyone who has contributed time, money, advice, guidance, or at times was there only to lend a hand or listen to me pour out my frustrations. There is a long list of individuals who have stepped in and played a role in getting us to where we are today, and they are the foundation for our future.
Contact Info:
- Address: 566 W. Adams, Suite 720 Chicago IL 60661
- Website: matrix1.com
- Phone: 312 648 9972
- Email: kkokaska@matrix1.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myperfectpet/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyPerfectPet?ref=hl
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