Manufacturing of Pet Health Supplements

Bill Bookout: I'll ask this question of all three of you. Sara, I'll continue with you. What do you think the manufacturers can do better? And before you answer that question. A lot of pet supplement companies don't manufacture their own products. There are a lot of companies out there that just market products that have their name on the label. Ultimately, they're responsible. So, whomever you buy a product from may not actually be the manufacturer. What do you think the manufacturers can do better to help the industry and also support the practitioners.

Sara Phillips: I would certainly say, stand our ground. Quality and compliance are the bedrock and foundation. We just have to stand our ground on that. It costs more. It takes more time, but that's a place where our brands can actually help doctors, where we can develop a reputation for quality and compliance. So, when the doctor is in the middle of trying to assess a patient and understand which product to recommend., they can lean on brands that they can trust. They know they have good quality, good compliance. They're not making outlandish claims. So, certainly manufacturers can partner, whether overtly or even just on a reputation basis with veterinarians and practitioners to say, “Listen, these are quality brands, and we can count on these brands.” At FoodScience, when we manufacture for our own brands, we start, of course, with quality and compliance. But then we really have to understand what are pet owners looking for.Now, that can be tricky, because what they think they're looking for may not always be the right answer. So, we have to understand what they're looking for work with our team and then try to deliver a solution that that makes good sense, that does meet a consumer where they are, but also makes good sense for the health of the pet.

Bill Bookout: You're so right, Sara. There's two things I've always said that you can take to the bank. Typically, cheap products are cheap for a reason, and companies that make claims that sound too good to be true, probably are. They're also probably violations of law. There aren't any magic bullets out there right? Wish there were. There aren't. So, to shift to the doctors, I'll start with Dr. Pachel. What do you think the manufacturers can do better from the practitioner's perspective.

Dr. Chris Pachel (he/him): Yeah, I'm sort of right in alignment with where Sarah started, you know, as you were saying, quality and compliance, my brain was saying integrity, and it's that integrity within the manufacturing process, and integrity and transparency.

If I'm working with a company I need to know that they're in communication with their manufacturers, and if there's a problem that's happening, if there's a glitch in the matrix, if there's something that's not going the way that it's supposed to go, I need to know that the manufacturer is that going to have at least as much of a say in that endpoint as opposed to “We pitched a product launch date. I need it by Tuesday. Make it as good as you can by Tuesday.” I'm like: Wrong answer. Let's delay the product launch until we've got the product that's good enough for what we're saying it's going to do.

So, that integrity and transparency is a really big part of it, and while I think ultimately that's to some degree on the manufacturer, I know they're under a lot of pressure by the companies themselves. There's always going to be that pressure. So, I actually listen for that within the companies themselves when they're talking about their manufacturing process. I want to know that they're valuing the manufacturer themselves as a collaborative part of that production process and not just sort of a means to the end. Again, that gives me more of the both the integrity and the transparency start to finish.

Bill Bookout: Yeah. And just to extend that one step further upstream, you really have to verify your suppliers of raw materials. Quality products start with raw quality, raw materials combined by quality, repeatable processes, and that provides consistency, week to week, month to month, year to year. So really good point. Dr. Morgan, what do you think?

Dr. Judy Morgan: Well, I like what you what you just brought up. It's those raw ingredients that are being brought in by the manufacturer. For instance, we have a supplement line that we don't manufacture. It's made in New Zealand. So, we took it upon ourselves to send those products out for heavy metal testing and for contaminant testing, because we're not manufacturing it. And you know they're telling me they're doing everything right. I kind of cringe, you know, when I first send these things out and go, “Oh, please work out.” It came back great because we do have a good manufacturer. But you know, I think that for companies who are having something manufactured by somebody else, if they can't get a CofA on those raw ingredients or on the finished product, then the company should take it upon themselves to find out what's going on, and make sure that they're not putting their name on something that could come back to bite them in the end or be problematic for the patients.

Bill Bookout: Yeah, that's not only a good idea, it's also a requirement under the law, because ultimately the company that purveys the product to the marketplace is responsible for everything that happens. So, really applaud you for verifying certificates of analysis. People, you know, sometimes call me at NASC, and they say, “Well, you know I have a certificate of analysis,” and I say, “How do you know that the company didn't make it up?” So, trust but verify, I think, is the baseline that people can really take so. You don't have to test yourself right out of business, but you should have testing verification for contaminants, heavy metals, potentially, micros. It’s the responsibility of the company providing the product to make sure they meet label claims.

Sara, how do you approach manufacturing of pet products, and do you consult veterinary professionals in formulating products? How do you go about that in the product development cycle.

Sara Phillips: Yeah, we have a veterinarian on staff at Food science. She this particular one, has been with us for 10 years. Dr. Elizabeth DeLomba. She's a champ. So, she absolutely plays a really important role in our product development process. And we have a robust product development process. Sometimes you could process yourself into inaction. But it's really important to have a process that's articulated and demonstrated, and like Bill said, repeatable. So, that is something that we have, and it's an absolute benefit for us both when we're formulating for our own brands and formulating for other people.

We absolutely lean on Dr. DeLomba for guidance in formulation and specifically in ingredients, and how they will act together, or perhaps shouldn't be together. Ingredient dosing is absolutely an area that I think is a little loosey goosey. So, we really lean on her to understand if these are the proper levels, and for what size, dog, or cat, or horse. She also sometimes helps us understand the science behind the ingredients which helps our marketing teams and our brands actually make marketing copy claims that make sense, and that can actually be rooted in science. This particular ingredient acts this way in the body. She's a really critical piece for us. And you know, like I mentioned earlier,FoodScience pet tech labs, we have really robust quality systems in place. The best compliment I can ever give our quality team is that I really never think about them, and if I don't have to think about them, that is a good thing.

So, I think having very robust processes and systems is really important, and as a company may be looking for a manufacturer or a veterinarian wondering about the manufacturer or the brand behind a particular product, that company should be willing to talk you through and show you these are our processes, these are our SOPs, this is how we do things, and that should all be very clearly documented. I think that's a very good inflection point for veterinarians or brands looking for manufacturers.

Bill Bookout: Absolutely, and it's up to the company that markets the product to qualify their vendors, and make sure that the manufacturers they use, if they don't manufacture their products themselves, also qualify their suppliers of raw materials. Because, again, as we discussed previously, if you don't start with quality raw materials, you're not going to have a quality product period.