Following our recent Export Action Plan showcase at GTR UK, we spoke to each of our competition finalists about their plans for export success.
Company name: Pet’s Kitchen
Website: www.vetknowhow.co.uk
Representative: Ben Hutton
What does your company do at the moment and what’s next?
We make and market natural pet food in the UK and increasingly overseas. Our mission is to improve the well-being of nation’s pets. We combine locally sourced natural ingredients with our vet team’s expertise and latest advances in technologies and research to create foods designed to give pets long and healthy lives.
How are the exports going?
We are focused on Asia and the Middle East. In the last six months we have signed agreements with partners in the GCC region, South Korea, Singapore and the Philippines. We are also about to launch in Dunnes Stores in Ireland and are involved in a test with the Casino Group in France.
How has the Export Action Plan helped with your exports?
It has helped us structure our approach with a clear process. It has also allowed us to review how we currently do things and make some changes. As part of our partner selection process we developed our own market assessment tool.
How have you found the experience of the final today?
This was an enjoyable day and a great experience listening to pitches from very different businesses at different stages in export.
What tips would you give to other new exporters?
Don’t be scared of export and don’t be afraid of making mistakes. These will help you build a strong export business based on solid foundations. There is no one right approach for export and this makes it both daunting and exciting.
About Pet’s Kitchen
At Vet’s Kitchen we are extremely passionate about animal health. We work with our in-house practice, Vet’s Klinic, to provide advanced nutrition pet food and treats that are more in-tune with a dog’s or cat’s natural physiology, in comparison to many of the highly processed diets available today.
Because we have our own vets practice, we see many pets, with a whole range of different problems. And because all of us have our own dogs and cats, we also understand the challenges of pet ownership. We get our ideas for our food, from our clients in the clinic so we are never short of problems to solve and that’s what we aim to do with our pet food.
Our food has paws-up approval; none of our food is tested at or in laboratory settings with unwilling participants. All of our products are taste-tested by willing volunteers. We have a huge pool of four-legged companions to try our products (who are more than willing to try tasty treats), including our own pets, our Klinic clients and our Partners.
For every recipe we choose a Brand Ambassador to represent the product. This is a real pet – who eats our food – where our food has made a real difference to their long-term health. And we’re proud to have them on the front of every pack.
We want to change common perceptions about advanced nutrition. We want to make it as accessible and affordable as possible. Our products are delivered to multiple outlets, both online, in supermarkets, as well as internationally to make high quality nutrition easy to access for owners
