Pet food pioneers: How a brother-sister duo is transforming an industry
In an unassuming building nestled among the cornfields south of Brainerd, food destined for the mouths of monkeys at zoos around the world rolls from assembly lines.
Run by brother and sister duo Tom and Sarah Barrett, Barrett Petfood Innovations is poised for explosive growth in the premium pet food market from its humble origins as a family farming operation. The company produces more than 150 different kinds of pet food - from those for dogs and cats to iguanas and large omnivores - and might be the only pet food manufacturer in the world experimenting with growing its own ingredients on site.
"People don't know that we serve 20-some companies and we're an international business out here in a cornfield," Tom Barrett, 33, said.
Local kids gone global
Ten years into careers the Brainerd High School graduates never expected to pursue near a city they didn't plan to return to as adults, the Barretts attribute their success to a willingness to push the boundaries in an industry inhospitable to change.
"I don't remember how many times I was told, 'You can't do that, you're not going to be able to do that.' And then we did it," Sarah Barrett, 29, said. "I think if we would have listened to what the industry leaders were saying, we would never be where we are."
Even Mike Barrett, Tom and Sarah Barrett's father who first purchased the equipment eventually used to manufacture the first run of bird food a decade ago, never expected to be in pet food. He acquired an extruder as part of a new business venture to produce fertilizer when ConAgra Foods shut down his leased agricultural retail business.
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“I don’t remember how many times I was told, ‘You can’t do that, you’re not going to be able to do that.’ And then we did it,” Sarah Barrett said. “I think if we would have listened to what the industry leaders were saying, we would never be where we are.”
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When fertilizer production didn't take off as expected, Tom Barrett said his father had a bunch of equipment with which he wasn't sure what to do. Home from college in 2005, Sarah Barrett began researching what else could be made using the extruder and discovered the equipment her father purchased was actually intended for pet food manufacturing.
Countless experiments, success and failures later, the Barretts are now known among premium pet food companies - those focused on high-protein, ethically sourced foods - as a go-to for pushing the limits of manufacturing.
"We've heard from a lot of people in the industry that that's what people like about us, that they feel like they can come to us with an idea and at least we'll try it. If they go to these other companies, they'll get, 'No, we don't have time for that,'" Sarah Barrett said.
This try-anything spirit and a drive to make as many industry contacts as possible was what led the company to begin distribution of foods internationally and for exotic pets, including those for monkeys and other large omnivores. Some of these foods are distributed to zoos all over the world, including the Bronx Zoo and San Diego Zoo.
Beyond the 'brown and round'
On the late July day the Brainerd Dispatch visited the facility, round-shaped hamster food - baked in an industrial oven - buzzed by on conveyor belts.
"Not many plants would want to mess with that, even though it has a decent capacity and a really good profit margin," Tom Barrett said.
Despite the challenges associated with producing numerous types of food on the same basic equipment, the Barretts have learned they can charge clients for the additional costs incurred from small runs of less popular foods.
"Other manufacturers like us, they want to do brown and round dog food every day of the year," Tom Barrett said. "There's no cleanup between runs, there's no switching out equipment. They want it easy. ... We get a good reputation by taking that work on. We can charge more for it too, because really, we're the only ones crazy enough to do it."
What the Barretts call "crazy" is getting them recognition outside the pet food world as well. In June, the business was recognized with the 29th annual Governor's International Trade Award for Agricultural Commodities/Processed Food, an award designed to honor Minnesota businesses showing "exceptional progress and success in foreign markets."
But it isn't just about innovation or finding a niche market for the Barretts; as pet owners themselves, the brother and sister pride themselves on producing high-quality foods they can stand behind personally.
"You don't want to be making something you wouldn't feed your animal," Sarah Barrett said. "It means something to us that it's a good product."
"There's a lot of tricks you can play in pet food," Tom Barrett said. "The scary thing is it's the same way in (human) food, too. How companies label things, there's ways to trick the consumer. There's a lot of that that goes on and that's one thing ... on the dog and cat food side, most of our customers don't play that game."
As the industry as a whole moves closer to regulations akin to human food manufacturing, the Barretts are attempting to stay ahead of the curve by implementing changes in procedure now. They recently began construction on a laboratory to test product on site, eliminating the cost and time necessary to send the products to outside labs.
Pet food picked from the backyard
Another cost-saving strategy the Barretts are in the process of testing harkens back to the company's origins and originates in a statement made in passing by Tom Barrett. Last year, Mike Barrett took his son's suggestion seriously and began to grow acres of yellow peas and chickpeas in his fields, crops central to pet food production and uncommonly grown in central Minnesota.
"It's kind of a marketing angle that nobody else in our industry is doing," Tom Barrett said. "Even on the food side, it's rare that a manufacturer would go all the way to the farm level. We already have the equipment, we already have the farm and the land. It's easy enough to just integrate that right into our business."
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Barrett Petfood Innovations
Location: Daggett Brook Township, south of Brainerd
Number of employees: 30-35
Fun fact: The company produces more than 150 types of pet food, including nearly 1 million pounds of monkey and large omnivore food annually.
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Working directly with the farmer - otherwise known as Dad - cuts out the middleman, allowing Mike Barrett to earn more from his crop and his children to spend less on ingredients. It's particularly attractive to the types of companies for which the Barretts produce food.
"We know our customers are more the non-GMO (genetically modified organisms) type. We're able to control what he plants and what he puts on it," Sarah Barrett said. "Being able to know that it was grown right here versus a lot of ingredients that can come from China and you don't know, nobody knows what that's gone through. It's fresh, it's right there."
Should the crop prove successful, it has the potential to positively impact not only on the Barretts' business, but the agricultural economy of the Brainerd area. The experiment has the interest of other area farmers, many of whom are eager to try something different than the traditional corn and soybeans.
The Barretts have plans to venture into other crops once initial testing is complete, perhaps even partnering with the University of Minnesota to develop varieties of crops such as quinoa to be more adapted to the north-central plains.
"Financially is definitely not the reason we're doing it," Tom Barrett said. "He can grow other crops that have higher margins from his standpoint than peas or chickpeas. But really the fact is, it catapults us into something where really we're the only ones in the country doing it."
Visions of growth
Situated in a market experiencing unfettered growth, Barrett Petfood Innovations has nowhere to go but up from here, the siblings said. The company began growing at a rapid clip three years ago, with sales tripling in 2012 alone. Larger pet food manufacturers, unable to keep up with demand for premium pet foods, pushed smaller customers toward the Barretts.
"That gave us some of the capital to put investment into our own company," Tom Barrett said. "That has now allowed us to be more competitive with purchasing ingredients, because we're bigger now, so now we're actually price competitive with some of the bigger plants in the U.S. We're kind of a player as far as getting any piece of business."
Five years from now, the pair hopes the company will operate in a larger factory employing at least 100 people. The Barretts also see growth potential beyond their own company. They said they hope to see their hometown benefit from a new source of dependable, more recession-proof jobs.
"We feel a little bit like it's our responsibility to grow a business that could potentially employ 200 or 300 people someday. And really, that's not out of the realm of possibility," Tom Barrett said.
Sarah Barrett said they not only want to provide employment, they want to offer well-paying jobs with upward mobility.
"We've had a lot of luck finding a younger generation of worker that isn't what people today consider the standard ... early 20-somethings that are really working hard," Sarah Barrett said. "I think that they want to grow, they can see the growth in us, and they are working just as hard as we are."
No matter what the future holds for the Barretts, one thing will remain a constant: a desire to innovate.
"I don't want to be the biggest pet food manufacturer in the world and neither does Sarah (Barrett), but I don't care if we are the biggest non-multinational pet food maker as long as we're still making good foods and have the same reputation that we always had," Tom Barrett said.
"If you get too set in your ways and too calculated, then you can't move with the ebbs and flows of what the latest trends are. You've got to be a little bit nimble and willing to make changes sooner or slower than you maybe wanted to."
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