If, as the saying goes, most people don’t want to know how sausage gets made, it stands to reason that even fewer want to know what goes on behind the scenes to make a can of dog or cat food.
They just want to hold their breath, pop open the can and spoon the gloop into a bowl for their own little Scrim or Whiskers to enjoy.
Louisiana entrepreneur Allison Ward is not most people.
Ward founded a pet costume startup, Pet Krewe, in 2018, and spent the next couple years learning the ins and outs of the U.S. pet industry, which trade groups value at about $150 billion annually. A few years in, she'd had some success designing, manufacturing and selling hundreds of costumes, but she was looking for opportunities to expand.
Her New Orleans-based company already had begun making pet treats when, during the pandemic, a shortage of canned cat food provided inspiration: She saw a need for what she describes as higher-quality food at affordable price points.
Ward and her team dedicated themselves to learning all the nuances of the pet food manufacturing process and jumped into the business in 2022.
“The pandemic was the best thing that could have happened to us,” Ward said. “It made us realize that supply chains are fragile, and consumer spending is pretty risky when you just have one season, Halloween. So we switched gears.”
Now, Pet Krewe sells millions of cans of its Salty Cat and Ella’s Best foods each month at Dollar Tree and other value chains, over 1,000 grocery stores, and soon in Walmart.
Ward said she turned down an eight-figure acquisition offer from a publicly traded company last year. Instead, she has plans to grow her operation focused on making lower-priced foods based on premium ingredients and recipes.
“People with disposable income shouldn’t be the only ones who can afford good pet food,” Ward said. “It’s ridiculous to have to spend a high percentage of your paycheck for something decent. We found the solution: just don’t put junk in it.”
From ‘steam punk' pups to Salty Cat cans
Hailing from tiny Maytown, Pennsylvania, Ward moved to New Orleans in 2011 to do accounting work related to the BP oil spill. In 2018, she decided to turn her hobby of making pet costumes into a business – and she was able to convince backers that the idea had merit.
Between 2018 and 2022, Pet Krewe raised more than $2 million from New Orleans angel investors and other sources.
The costume enterprise has been a success, considering the limitations of the business model. Ward describes Pet Krewe as the biggest company of its kind outside of China.
Over the last decade, first on her own and then with her team, Ward has designed and manufactured about 300 different outfits to transform pets into lions, pirates, hot dogs and “steam punks.”
But then, in late 2021, came the big pivot and the big question: how does a pet costume company learn to make pet food at a commercial scale?
Ward didn’t know, but she and her second in command, Brittany Sobert, were motivated to find out. They started reading all they could on the subject — covering everything from the emulsification process (don’t Google any pictures of it) to the ingredients that should and shouldn’t be included in a balanced diet for dogs and cats.
Then, Ward said she called “every cannery in North America” until she got a referral to a manufacturing facility in Thailand that turned out to be a suitable partner, and Pet Krewe put its line of cat food into production in 2022.
It was around that time that a buyer asked Ward if Pet Krewe also made dog food.
“I said yes, even though we hadn’t created it yet,” Ward said. “They asked if I could send them some. And I said, ‘I’ll get it to you shortly,’ which is southern for, ‘We’ll think of something.’”
Ward said the buyer asked her what the brand-name of the dog food was.
“My dog Stella was sitting next to me, so I said, ‘Stella’s Best,’” she said. “Britney and I stayed up all night working with Thailand to create the brand and called it that.”
Later, a legal dispute with a bigger company led to a slight name change from Stella’s Best to Ella’s Best.
‘I believe in my team'
The first cans of Salty Cat and Ella’s Best were shipped at the end of 2022. Now, after two years, the canned and pouched foods make up the vast majority of Pet Krewe’s business.
The company has a full-time team of five people working out of a spartan office in Elmwood and collaborates with about 20 other contractors on logistics, marketing and other details.
Ward said she expects other acquisition offers. Suitors could include companies already in the sector or others looking for diversification. It could be a venture capital firm that wants to open a pet portfolio.
If Pet Krewe is acquired in the coming years, she said, there will be a solid return on investment for the company’s early backers, which include members of the Gulf South Angels and other New Orleans-based angel investors.
“Pet Krewe evolved into other pet products because they learned that there's a significant interest and demand in pet-related things in America,” said Mike Eckert, founder of Gulf South Angels. “The company is growing massively, and we love the CEO. She's just spectacular.”
Ward appreciates the early vote of confidence from GSA and others.
“I’m not an investor,” she said. “I don’t have the funds, but I don’t know that I would have invested in a pet costume company. But I do believe in my team, and I would invest in them every time.”
