The Formula K story (page 2)
Finding a dog for the front of the pack
Most dog food has a picture of a dog on the pack. Fair enough, we thought, we need one, too.
But what dog do we choose? After some searching, we found a lovely dog called Caz in Devon who looked just right. We put his picture on the front of the pack, and also on the website (above). Click here to find out more about Caz.
The agency probably got a little tired of having their designs amended by dog people. But they persevered. And eventually we got a nice 1.5kg box and a 200g sample pack. With money running low, Kit decided he couldn't afford to make 7.5kg and 15kg packs as well (because you have to print tens of thousands at one go). And what if no one liked Formula K?
So Gerry, a talented marketing and sales guy who came to help, suggested shrink-wrapping four 1.5kg packs to make a 6kg pack. It would stand in for the usual 7.5kg pack that the retailers would expect.
We make the first batch
The nutritionists came up with a recipe, which Kit approved, and we got the first batch made.
The factory sent it all round to Kit's house in a big lorry. Here's a photo of the Formula K, piled six feet high, in Kit's house.
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Where can we put it all? Kit (looking ever so slightly dazed) is surrounded by bags of Formula K in bulk packs for testing. The house was full of dog food. |
But would it work?
But was the dog food any good? We had to test it out.
We asked a veterinary practice - Abbottswood in Yate, north Bristol, if they would help us conduct some proper research, and they agreed.
They run a regular obesity clinic for overweight dogs. And they asked the owners to participate in a trial. Some of the dogs were fed Formula K, and others a standard dog food. Each week the dogs were weighed and checked. At the end of 12 weeks, the dogs on Formula K had lost weight, and the dogs on the ordinary food had put on even more weight!
Hurray! We had proved that Formula K did what it set out to do.
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Taking the dog food to the clinical trials. Pete is sorting out the dog food in the van, prior to delivering it to the dogs that were on the clinical trial.
At the bottom of the picture you can see some well-known dog food used as the 'control'. All the dog food was decanted into anonymous blue bags, so the respondents wouldn't know what their dog was eating.
Meanwhile, Clifford can smell lovely dog food. Note how he's looking a bit paunchy - he'd only been on Formula K for a couple of weeks at this stage. |
Eventually, we had a recipe, a name, a pack design, and some product. and we started to sell it. A few good independent pet retailers began to ask for Formula K, and sales began to grow.
And that's where we've got to in the story of Formula K. Hopefully, there's more to come!
I'll let you know what happens.
Thanks for reading
Kit Sadgrove
Founder
PS By clicking here, you can read my blog on overweight dogs.
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