Dog Food CEO Eats Kibble for 30 Days to Prove It's Good for Dogs

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Validue 528. Mole Shopper excludes Alaska and Hawaii. Selection varies by location. While supplies last. See Lowe's.com for more details. This is our American Stories and our next story is about a family-owned business. Mitch Felderhoff is the co-owner of Munster Milling, a fourth-generation family-owned and operated animal food manufacturer. You might have seen Mitch in the news recently because he decided to eat nothing but the specialized dog food his company makes for 30 straight days. It got our attention.

Here's Mitch. My name is Mitch Felderhoff and I'm one of the fourth-generation owners of Munster Milling Company. I grew up in the business and as my parents were getting ready to retire they had considered selling the business and my brother and I didn't want to see that happen so we went to the bank and found a way to come up with the money and purchased the business from them. They were kind of reluctant to invest and you know it's a big investment and they had put 30-40 years into the business and I think they were kind of ready to take a breath and take a break and you know we were young hungry and ready to change the world so we we said hey we'll we'll take the gamble and we'll go do it.

We had things that we wanted to do a little bit differently than what had been done in the past and the easiest way for us to do it was to take control of the business. It was just regular standard kibble for the most part is what we made and when we purchased it we we wanted them to kind of change the way we did things and so we incorporated freeze-dried into our product lineup along with the ability to customize a single bag of food actually so now we can add bacon fat or salmon oil to a single bag if we wanted to. You know our goal was to reduce carbohydrates in pet food and make dog food different than what a lot of people currently are and so we made the move and put a freeze dryer in about a year ago which essentially is the ability to make astronaut food for dogs. So we're taking raw food and pulling the moisture out while it's frozen and essentially leaving just raw organ meat that's shelf stable. So the way freeze-drying works that's different than kibble is you're taking raw frozen meat and you stick it in this giant chamber that looks kind of like a shipping container probably weighs about 40,000 pounds and it's stainless steel and we pull a vacuum on it so there's no more air in there than there is an outer space and then we get it down to our negative 60 degrees fahrenheit and we heat the trays up to you know anywhere between 30 and 40 degrees fahrenheit and when you have that big of a temperature difference in a vacuum it causes a process called sublimation where water goes from the ice form to a vapor form and so it's kind of like watching dry ice sit on the table you know how it just kind of evaporates and you see what looks like cold steam coming out of it that's the process to freeze-dried and the benefit to it is you don't have to have a bunch of starches and sugars in there to hold the product together you know it's it's still in its quote-unquote frozen state but all the moisture has been removed yeah kibble you have to heat it up to you know 290 degrees put a lot of pressure on it and then dry it in an oven afterwards and the freeze-dried such a delicate gentle process that if you've got a dog that has stomach issues allergies of any sort this is almost a foolproof thing that you can feed them and so the past four years has really been focused on how do we remove carbohydrates and make food less uh less inflammatory and still be a major employer in the little town that we grew up in it's one of those what can we do that Nestle and Mars can't and they make more kibble than anybody in the world and uh dog obesity is at a almost a crisis level 54 percent of dogs are obese and we thought how can we combat that and so brother and I were just talking and said you know it's it's hard to make a kibble that's low enough carbohydrates to make a difference and the only way to really kind of push the envelope on it is to start to incorporate more protein and fat via freeze-drying so we're using beef chicken fish elk and just started using bison so I came up with the idea a couple years ago when I walked into a store and I just saw tons and tons of marketing from these other companies and I thought I can't compete with that I we don't have the bankroll to do it and we don't have the ability to write the checks but what can what can I do that can help get our company out there and help us be noticed and and kind of get the point across that we care more than them and just kind of had the idea that you know what I'm willing to eat our dog food for 30 days only I don't think any of these other companies would be you know for about two years I just kicked it around on maybe I should do it maybe I shouldn't and then my wife and I were on our 10-year anniversary trip and you know you're just you're thinking and hey have I have I have I done life the way I wanted to so far have I gone all in am I giving it everything I have and I just thought you know what I've got this idea of eating dog food for 30 days that I haven't executed yet and when I get back I need to do that I need to take it to the next level and I told my wife and she just kind of looked at me and laughed and said you know of course you are she was in between she thought it was great from a what are we willing to do for the business and to to show customers we care but it definitely got in the way of meal time because you know the family is eating dinner and I'm the biggest one in the family and so she typically counts on me to eat my share so there were a lot more leftovers the house smelled like cooked dog food for a month and you know the breath the breath also also had the dog food on it and then when I got back to the office my marketing director just said he was kind of he was kind of in the mode of god please don't do this because if it goes wrong and you end up in the hospital then I don't know how we recover from that and then told my brother and he he's like hey you know it's probably a good idea but I'm I'm glad it's not me so go for it day two through four I was pretty somber and wondering how how am I going to make it another 25 to 28 days and what the heck did I just sign up for no seasoning no sauces no alcohol no coffee it was it was pretty much dog food and water four or five six days in everyone was I was on board and loving it and customers had a great time with it and it's just been a real fun process it tastes like you think it would it it doesn't smell great and it doesn't taste awesome dogs have a little bit different palate than what we do but you know I'm glad they like it I have two yellow labs and one of them is 12 and the other one's 14 and a half they go nuts over the freeze-dried so dogs their their flavor profile it comes from fat and protein not specifically like chicken or beef they just they can taste the fat we've seen a huge increase online I mean almost triple the visitors to our website this January versus past we've had a lot more customers calling that just had they wanted to know more and then our retailers that have independent brick and mortar locations have said that people have come in talking about it so we're seeing a positive impact from it essentially we have to be as clean as a human-grade facility and so the investment level that it has is taken and the commitment it takes is as much much higher than what it was years ago and we're not necessarily charging a lot more for dog food and so we just have to be leaner and more efficient and as a smaller manufacturer that's competing against you know some global companies that have that huge advertising marketing budget just trying to be creative so that people know who we are is it's getting harder and harder we try to work with independent and family-owned businesses that's just where we've spent 87 years and we really like that environment and and working with those and then we we also sell online direct to consumer we also do a fair amount of private labels so if somebody wanted their own brand of dog food or treat we'll make it for them as well our website is a monster milling.com and it's monster spelt like the cheese and then milling.com a lot of dog food that's out there it's made by candy companies and cereal companies and it's not their main focus it's it's just another way to fill up a truck on the way to the grocery store and try and maximize the value to shareholders and when we make a food we make it with a dog in mind and so much so that we won't feed your dog something that we haven't eaten ourselves and you've been listening to mitch felderhoff and he's the co-owner of monster milling a fourth generation family-owned and operated animal food manufacturer located in monster texas and my goodness he lost 30 pounds by the way going on that little trial and a little bit of food going on that little trial and learned a lot and my goodness sold a lot of dog food along the way i love that he said young hungry and ready to change the world that's how he described himself at that age and how did he want to change the world he wanted to change his world by keeping a family business in a small town and employing 59 people and that folks that's changing the world mitch felderhoff story here on our american stories if you have a small family business like this multi-generation share the story with us my favorite is the steinway family story the germans back in the day had guilds and they didn't think they needed another piano maker so germany said get out of dodge america's gain was germany's loss as the great piano manufacturer stays in the family for multi-generations monster milling mitch felderhoff story here on our american story so behind every successful business is a vision bringing it to life takes more than effort it takes the right financial foundation and support that's where chase for business comes in with convenient digital tools helpful resources and personalized 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