Minneapolis & Owatonna, Minnesota
A new pet food company, starting from the recipe.
We own our formulas and the plant that makes them. That lets us build food around what pets actually need, and change it quickly when we learn something.
Where we’re starting
Three questions worth answering well.
Our first recipes are built around areas where pet owners are asking better questions than the category is answering. We describe what our food supports; we make no claims about treating or preventing disease.
Longevity & healthy aging
Complete diets built around how cats age, a topic the category talks about far less than it talks about dogs.
Owners of twelve-year-old cats ask the most specific questions in the category, and get the vaguest answers. Senior cat content is thin almost everywhere you look.
Joint support
Well served by supplements and toppers, much less so by complete diets built around it from the recipe up.
People start looking the first time a dog hesitates at the stairs. What they find is almost always a supplement to add, rather than a food to switch to.
Gut health
Plenty of probiotic add-ons, few complete diets that own the subject rather than bolting it on.
It is the problem owners describe most precisely, usually after a week of mess, and the one where the advice they find is the least specific.
How we’re set up
Short distance between an idea and a bag of food.
North Kettle was formed to buy the recipes and the manufacturing of a long-running Minnesota pet food supplier, and to build a brand of our own on top of them. The plant has been making dog and cat food for decades. What it has never had is a brand with its name on the bag.
Because we own both ends and carry no retailer commitments, we can reformulate in weeks. Most of our category measures that in seasons.
Where you’ll find us at launch
Our own storefront, where we control the experience and own the relationship with the customer.
Selling directly on the marketplace from launch, rather than waiting for a retail buyer to say yes.
The same direct approach on the second marketplace where pet food volume is growing fastest.
Pet specialty retail comes later. We would rather do three channels properly than six badly.
Why now
People have started asking a different question.
For years, choosing pet food meant a shelf, a vet, or a search box. More and more it means asking an assistant what to feed a twelve-year-old cat who is slowing down. We are building our recipes, our labels and our catalog so they can answer that question properly from the first day we sell anything.