"You are what you eat." What you eat, you will become. Healthy eating, paying attention to balanced nutrition and eating less processed food have become the dietary guidelines for more and more people who call for a healthy life. This trend is popular not only in human food, but also in pet food.

Farmer Dog, a brand of fresh pet distribution, which was founded in 20 15, seized this business opportunity and raised more than 49 million US dollars (about 300 million RMB) to build the next unicorn brand in the field of pet food.

And this entrepreneurial ambition must start with a sick dog.

Innovation: according to the special needs of each dog, the freshly made dog food is tailored, and the owner uses "subscription" to receive it regularly, saving the trouble of replenishment.

There are three key points in this paper: 1. Pets become the "first child" of millennials. 2. Customize pet nutritious meals to help dogs control calories. 3. Can I subscribe to dog food?

1. Pets become the "first child" of millennials.

The story founded by the farmer's dog, like thousands of entrepreneurial stories in Qian Qian, comes from the needs and problems of the founder himself.

Brett Podolski, who is in his twenties, has a pet dog Jeddah, a black Rottweiler. Jada was diagnosed as suffering from chronic gastrointestinal diseases by veterinarians, so since she was a puppy, Brett tried all kinds of dog food on the market to make Jada absorb nutrition more effectively. However, Jada was ill for a long time until Brett started cooking for her dog food.

The black dog on the left and the big boy on the second left are Jada and his master Brett Podolski.

While looking for suitable food for Jada, Brett also found that although the dog food on the market is always advertised as "real" and "all natural" food, in fact, the dog food on the supermarket shelves can always be kept for 1 or 2 years, and the bags are filled with processed food that can't understand the ingredients. This gave Brett an idea: Why not make healthy and fresh food for Jada, and even serve more dogs with the same needs?

Brett's story actually reflects a great social change of millennials under the age of 35: the phenomenon of late marriage, late childbirth and even no birth is becoming more and more common. Pets are not only hairy children, but also regarded as their own children by these young people, just like their first children.

In 20 17 years, American families spent an average of $7 10 on pets, which was more than the cost of subscribing to cable TV. Demographer Cheryl Russel even thinks that pet spending has surpassed cable TV and become the largest entertainment consumption in the United States. Among them, 1/3 of the pet expenses contributed to pet food. Even during the recession, Americans would rather tighten their clothes and go on a diet than starve their pets.

When Americans treat their pets as children more and more, they pay more and more attention to the high quality of pet food, which gives high-quality pet food opportunities to grow and attracts investors' attention.

2. Customize pet nutritious meals to help dogs control calories.

In order to love dogs, Brett Podolsky and his partner Jonathan Regev started a farmer's dog business. In a small kitchen in Brooklyn, new york, they started cooking fresh food for dogs.

They not only pay attention to fresh food, but also pay attention to more nutritious and healthier dog food. The farmer's dog is diagnosed through a series of questionnaires, knowing the dog's age, weight, activity, breed, eating habits and medical history, and then calculating the calories and menu suitable for the dog breed through the algorithm, so as to provide the dog owner with three choices of beef, turkey and pork. Every kind of dog food is not only protein, but also mixed with vegetables, such as broccoli, carrots, chickpeas, spinach, potatoes and even fish oil.

In addition, the farmer's dog also helps the dog owner control the dog's calorie intake. According to the number of calories needed by dogs, they package each dog food separately, so that each dog can consume reasonable calories. In contrast, the large package of dog food on the market makes it difficult for dog owners to grasp the reasonable calorie intake of each dog, which leads to obesity problems in many dogs in the United States. Because each package is accurately grasped, the farmer's dog can also accurately grasp the dog's food inventory and when to deliver the next package. Even the price is customized, starting from about $3 a day (about 18 yuan RMB), but if the dog eats more food and consumes more calories, the cost will also rise.

3. Can I subscribe to dog food?

Subscription is a common business model for startups in recent years. You can "subscribe" clothes or "subscribe" razors.

Innovative latte once analyzed Dollar Shave Club, a razor company that successfully promoted subscription system.

In the field of catering, the company "Blue Apron", which sells well-matched dinner ingredients, once caused a sensation with "subscription". Five years after its establishment, Scenery went public, but after one and a half years of listing, its share price plummeted by 90%.

One of the reasons is that people want more choices in diet, but any prepackaged food is limited. Farmers' dogs have an advantage in this respect, that is, dogs are not as fond of the new as people, and they are happy to eat the same things all the time. Therefore, owners are more willing to buy dog food by subscription, so that farmers' dogs can quickly accumulate subscribers. Dogs don't pick their mouths, so owners don't have to worry about buying too much inventory of the same item at a time, which also greatly reduces the delivery cost of farmers' dogs.

Dog food received by subscribers will be frozen with dry ice and packaged separately according to the daily quantity. Subscribers only need to unfreeze today's quantity and then put the rest in the refrigerator. The packaging bag (pictured above) is specially designed to be flat to avoid taking up too much space in the freezer.

After the morning dose is fed, the rest is refrigerated. When it's time to eat, take out the rest and feed it. In this way, dogs can eat really fresh food like people, instead of hard dry food.

The family pattern is changing quietly, and the farmer's dog is following the trend. How big can it be? Let's keep tracking.