Sustainable Pet Food — Building a Better Planet One Bowl at a Time with Anne Carlson

Thank you, I'm really happy to be here.

I'm so excited to get to chat with you. I love chatting about animals and food, and making healthy food for animals.

I know there's nothing better than talking about our pets.

We should have brought them, although they might have been a little distracting.

Yeah, the barking

Just a little bit. I am so excited to get to know you. So for those not familiar with Jiminy's, just give us a little synopsis. So before we get going, people know what Jiminy's is.

Sure. At Jiminy's, we make sustainable dog food and treats. And what makes it sustainable? Well, we replace that traditional animal protein, so thin cow or chicken, with insect protein. And it's delicious, nutritious, sustainable, humane and hypoallergenic. It's kind of got it all.

Wow. Okay, so is there anybody else out there doing this?

There's a few that have started now. And there's a few outside of the US, but we're the leader in the US.

Wow, that's exciting. Okay, I'm gonna have to get my dogs to try to have any soon. Alrighty, so this is super exciting. So now tell me what inspired you to start Jiminy's?

Well, I used to work for one of the big pet food companies. I've been in consumer packaged goods my entire career. But when I was at that big company, we were acquired. And as I was trying to decide what I wanted to do next, I was talking with my daughter and somehow we got into the subject of whether or not she wanted to have kids. And she told me no, and I gotta tell you, it hit me hard. She was worried about what the world was going to be like by the time they grew up, she was talking about climate change. And as we were talking, I realized I couldn't do a normal job after that. I changed direction, and my pivot was sustainability and pets. And there's lots of reasons why I love it. One of them is that our dogs basically eat the same thing every day. And if you swap it with a sustainable alternative, you can have a massive impact, you get basically all of their eating occasions.

Wow. Okay, first, let's go back to that. How old's your daughter?

Okay, when we were having the conversation, it was summer of 2021. Okay. She's about 27 now.

Wow, that is quite an epiphany for 20, I mean for a 21 years old to be making those kinds of statements. That's a pretty large statement to make, right? And a pretty large impact to want to have on the world.

It's not unusual, though. If you talk to millennials and Gen Z's, a lot of times, you'll hear the same thing. And what you're seeing a lot of times also is them getting a pet instead of having a kid, or having a pet to practice and see if they might want to have a kid.

I'm with you. I just remember when I was 21, I didn't even know what I wanted to do. These kids seemed much more advanced than we were back then. I don't know, maybe you knew what you wanted to do at 21. I just didn't know.

Absolutely not. They are much more aware of the situation. They've been living in it, they see what's happening. And they're worried about climate change and what it's doing to the world.

Yeah, I think it's amazing. So your daughter inspired this idea. And so you go from having this idea to realizing you want to make an impact in the world. So how did you go from wanting to make an impact in the world to figuring out that it was going to be Jiminy's?

Well, I didn't know what I was going to do when I first had this. I've got to do something different. I actually considered whether or not I wanted to do something for people like some kind of food. But as I was thinking about it, it was this idea that I can have more impact on pets than I can for humans because we eat so many different things every single day. It's really hard to have a major impact. If I made a breakfast bar, maybe I could get you to eat that for breakfast a few days a week. It's really not that much of an impact. But like I said, with the dogs, you get all of their eating occasions. And that's a big deal. People don't realize how big of an impact our pets have. UCLA study says 25 to 30% of the environmental impact of meat consumption in the US is due to our dogs and cats.

Wow. That's huge.

Huge, right? If you took the 163 million dogs and cats and made them their own country, they would rank number five globally in meat consumption.

Wow. Yeah. If we take that meat consumption out of the equation, how would that impact the planet?

Well, it has a major impact. If you can do it with less resources, it leaves more for humans. But also, one of the things I look at with Jiminy's is we're normalizing insect protein because people are seeing that it is a fantastic nutrient source for dogs and cats. And we're proving out all sorts of benefits. There's got health benefits. There's allergies, people who have allergies and dogs who have allergies that make them feel better. There's less itching. And actually, gut health is really interesting. Less farting, less bad breath.

That's a big one. Really do have bad breath because a lot of people don't brush their dog's teeth. It's very hard. So if you can cure that problem. Do you brush your dog's teeth? Do they have good breath?

Well, the funny thing is, I don't brush my dog's teeth, which you think I would because I'm in the industry. But I don't. But one day after we'd been feeding our dogs, Jiminy's, we've had the food out for probably about two years, and I went to my husband, I noticed our dogs have really good breath. He's like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, no. Really, they have great breath. And I started looking at their teeth. One of my dogs is eight years old, his teeth are white. And it turns out that the protein is actually antimicrobial. And so not only is it helping with their microbiome in their gut, but it's helping with their mouth as well. So we actually are in the process of creating another product that is a dental treat, it's going to come out this spring.

Wow. Have you considered or thought about doing any sort of studies?

There's a lot of studies that are being done. We did a lot of them when we first started out. Because even though I had this idea, let's feed the insect protein to the dogs and cats, I saw the UN study that said insects could be the answer to world hunger. And that's what got me going. I actually ordered crickets online, fed them to my dogs, and the drill started right away. So I knew we had something that they would like. But there was still a question as to whether or not the dogs could digest it. So we invested in the science behind this. We did digestibility studies, we had a hypothesis about the prebiotic nature of the protein because it has chitin as well. You use the entire insect, so you get the exoskeleton, and that's where the fiber comes from. So we did all of those studies. And the studies continue on. Other people have started to do them as well. A lot of our suppliers, which is great. They're finally getting to the point where they're able to do them, and we're learning about what it's hypoallergenic. There's deeper dives into the immune response. It's great for immunity, the list kind of goes on and on. It's exciting.

That is exciting. So at what point did you realize that this, I mean, besides the drywall, did you realize that this was the next sustainable pet food out there and you were going to make this a business?

Well, I came up with the idea. I was thinking about, oh, this is good. This is not going to be easy because we're taking something that people have not thought about as a protein source for their dogs. So there's going to be a ton of education. When I looked at it, it was such a fantastic solution because it had all of the essential amino acids that the dog needs. It had this great nutritional profile, it really is a superfood. But on the sustainability side, less land, less water, almost no greenhouse gasses, and it's hugely different when you look at it. Just to take one example, if you've got an acre of land and you put chickens on it, at the end of the year, you'll have 265 pounds of protein. If you put crickets on that same land, you'll have 65,000 pounds of protein. It's huge.

Okay. So that was a no brainer is what you're saying.

If I wanted to fight climate change, this was the way to do it. It's great from a nutrition perspective, but then sustainability is off the charts.

And so as a business, we know it's sustainable and it solves your problem. How is it as a business?

Well, it's been a journey.

Is this your first time as an entrepreneur and as a founder?

No, I've done it before. I did it once working for a company. I started a company within a company. And then I went, left there, and I started another company, and I sold it to IRI. And then this is the first time where it was really this kind of passion project. It's something that I feel so incredibly motivated by, and it's so important. So for me, even though it's really, it was not an easy idea. It was an idea that had to happen, and I felt like I needed to make it happen. So when I started, I started with some treats. And while we were doing all of the research behind it, and then once we finished with the research and we submitted it to the FDA, that's when we launched the food. And it happened to coincide when COVID hit. So we launched our food March 2020, which was a crazy time to launch anything. But it turned out to work out all right for us because we shifted gears and put a lot of our efforts into selling online. And it was a great place to be able to educate consumers about this new protein source. And so it kind of worked out from that perspective.

I keep hearing you say WE, are you doing this with anyone?

Well, I have a team.

So tell me about your team. Are you a Co-Founder? Did you find it with anybody else?

I do have one other Co-Founder, and he was there at the beginning, but wasn't as heavily involved. But recently, we've drawn him in. And now, he's full time with us as well. And he's my Chief Operating Officer.

That's great. And how did you guys come together?

It's kind of funny. Actually, he had this idea for a grass fed beef treats company for dogs.

He was also in pet food beforehand?

No. He was initially in beef, the beef industry. So he got introduced to me through our network, and we were thrown together. He approached me to lead this company for him, and it was about the same time when I was trying to figure out what I was going to do. I looked at it and said, I love your idea of sustainability and pet. It's really where I've been going, and I want to do something here. The cows are just never going to be the answer. And so that's when I found that a UN study said insects could be the answer to world hunger. It all sort of launched from there. And Bill, he saw the light, and he's a total convert now. He's all in on insect protein, which is exciting.

And so it sounds like you guys have a little bit of a different skill set. Is that right?

Definitely. He's more on the operation side. I've always been more on the sales and marketing side of things. And then we brought in a team over time at the beginning. I just asked my husband to help out every once in a while. He always likens himself to the frog that I put in a pot of water and I turned the heat up. At the beginning, I asked him, oh, can you help me build it out? I need a booth for a trade show. I don't know how to do that. Can you help? And then he became our first sales guy.

Was he working before that?

He was. He basically saw what I was doing, and he was all in as well. He understood why I was doing it, and it's our daughters. So he started working with me full time. And since then, we've hired an amazing team. We've got somebody who really understands direct to consumer marketing. So selling online. We just recently hired a guy who has enormous experience in the pet industry. From the sales side, we brought in a person, a woman who is amazing from the operations perspective. In fact, she's like one of those people like any problem that you have, you throw it to her and she can figure it out. So our team is just built and it's amazing. We all work from home offices, but it's working.

Are you guys self funded? Or did you raise money?

We raised money. Especially to do all that work at the beginning, the science behind it, it's not cheap because we had to design studies. We ended up making four different diets when we would do it because you had to have a control as well as graduated inclusions on the insect protein. So there was a lot that went into it.

Wow. And you have covered a lot of ground in the last few years. But I'll say it again, what's new and what's next on the trajectory for Jiminy's?

Well, sales expansion, we have moved into Petco. So you'll see our product line in Petco which is very exciting. They made a commitment to sustain inability. We're also moving into more independent pet stores across the country now that things have changed and consumers are going back into the stores. And then innovation, we've got a ton of innovation that's coming out. The dental treats are going to be here in the spring, and then we've got additional products that are coming later in the year.

Wow, that's exciting. So for those people that are listening that have tuned in today, if they wanted to get your product, where would they find it? Are they in the Bay Area or around the country?

Any of those places I mentioned on our website is a really good place to go. And then we've got a little special for you on the website, and our website is jiminys.com, J-I-M-I-N-Y-S .com.

And for any of our guests here today, our special Essential Ingredients and NextGen Purpose listeners, is there a special for them?

There is 20% off. Just use EI20 on checkout.

Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. I love learning about what you're doing. I love hearing the story about your daughter and about all the things that you're doing. I can't wait to continue to watch Jiminy's grow, see about all these things, get my dog some treats and food and see if she can stop scratching.

Let's do that.

We look forward to seeing you again soon.

Thank you.