Leading the pack with frozen food

It’s been another incredible year for Big Country Pet Company (Smithville, Ont.), which is currently transitioning from its original name of Big Country Raw to better reflect its wide range of offerings.

Twelve years in, the firm now has its cat and dog food in over 1,500 retail stores, serving over 100,000 customers. However, like many Canadian food companies, it started in the smallest possible way—in the family kitchen. Geraldine and Rob Brouwer were a typical young couple with young children, she in HR, he in engineering. When they started making raw food for one of their dogs, family and friends wanted some too, kicking off a huge, unforeseen adventure.

“Running such a large company is something we’d never expected,” Geraldine Brouwer says. “We’ve had double-digit growth every year. We moved into a new 25,000-sf facility in 2019, and immediately expanded. We’re adding another one now, which will take us to 50,000 sf.”

The company now employs 183 people at its plant and main distribution centre, and its distribution hubs in Calgary and Ottawa. There are plans to open a distribution centre in Vancouver.

Big Country began with fresh, raw frozen food: a combination of meat, bone, organ meat, fruits and vegetables and a vitamin-mineral mix. It also offers formulas with only meat, organs, and bone. About 85 per cent of sales are dog food, but their raw cat food sales are currently experiencing tremendous growth.

In September 2023, the firm introduced a frozen, gently cooked dog food under the brand name Caravan.
“It’s for small dogs that aren’t keen on raw food, and for customers who aren’t quite comfortable with raw,” Brouwer says. “This category is definitely growing. We want to be innovative and bring the best products to market, and we saw we could offer a cooked food that’s better than anything available.”

The Big Country team also prides itself on using high-quality ingredients and honing production to ensure the end product has perfect consistency. They’ve found vacuum-sealed packaging critical to achieving a long shelf life.

Standing apart

However, the aspect that most distinguishes Big Country from competitors in Brouwer’s view is its educational efforts with both consumers and industry members.

“There were concerns raw food wasn’t safe or complete in nutrition, but we’ve come a long way,” she notes. “We invest a lot of effort on social media and through media outlets and influencers. I think pet food store owners and staff also tend to be really well informed now. We also have a big customer service team ready to answer questions directly through phone calls and several other ways. That’s really important.”
Parallel to this education effort has been a focus on changing labelling regulations. Brouwer explains that the word ‘raw’ is being wantonly abused in the Canadian pet food space and it needs to be properly regulated. There are also huge differences in raw pet food manufacturing.

“There are about 10 companies in Canada making raw frozen cat and dog food, but only four that I know of are HACCP-validated and use contingencies like bacteriophages to protect food safety. It is deeply concerning for us and other HACCP-compliant companies that we are all grouped together in terms of quality control,” she explains.

At this point, work is ongoing to ensure the term, ‘raw,’ is used exclusively on minimally processed raw food. Additionally, the Brouwers are working on obtaining membership with the Pet Food Association of Canada (PFAC) to effectively advocate for safe and balanced raw pet food.

Pivoting and plans

As successful business owners do, the Brouwers have innovated where necessary and continue to pursue new opportunities.
For example, back at the start of 2023, sales started to slow down. Brouwer thought about how she purchases in bulk for her family (she and Rob have six kids) and started working on a bulk product for dogs. By July, she had introduced a XL Bistro box and sales immediately rebounded.

“We took our main proteins – chicken, turkey and beef – swapped some of the veggies and fruit without affecting nutrition levels, made a larger patty and squeezed portions into a big box with stripped-down packaging,” she explains proudly. “It’s 30 lb for $100, which is a very good value for the same high quality.”

On the subject of costs, distribution expenses have always been kept low with a direct distribution model. There was actually no other option at the start for Big Country because existing pet food distributors were not equipped to handle frozen products. Big Country had to deliver directly to stores, a move which not only saves costs, but also enables them to ensure quality (temperature and handling) is maintained. It’s also provided an effective way to gather feedback from retailers and consumers.

Big Country also offers a range of other products such as Frozen Goat (frozen goat’s milk yogurt snacks for dogs), supplements and chews under the brand name Thrive.

Big Country is also toying with the idea of exports.

“We get calls daily from the U.S. asking if our products are available there,” Brouwer says. “Many retailers there are very excited, so we’re making our move. There are some raw food companies in the U.S., but there’s a place for us there. While we cannot currently export our product there due to existing laws, we hope that will change, and in the meantime, we’re planning to partner with a U.S. co-manufacturer. The market there is very different than Canada, with a lot of variability in regulations and distribution models from state to state. We’re hoping to start with regional distribution in the northeast.”

Meanwhile in Canada, double-digit growth continues, and the Big Country team keeps getting messages from customers about how raw food has improved their pets’ health and quality of life for the better.

“That was our reason for starting this business, to give pets longer and healthier lives,” Brouwer says. “It’s a privilege to keep doing that.”