Company Eats its Own Dog Food

Johnni Rodgers doesn’t actually advise you to eat her company’s dog food. She does want you to know, however, that her Wet Noses Natural Dog Treat Co.’s food is 100% human grade, and is manufactured in a facility equipped to produce human food. 

The company’s motto? “If you wouldn’t eat it, don’t feed it to your dog.” And yes, Rodgers has tried it.

“It’s a rite of passage here,” says Rodgers, who purchased Monroe-based Wet Noses in 2020 from founder Jazz Galligan after spending 15 years in the consumer-products industry working with brands such as Planters, Kashi, Cracker Barrel and Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. “One of our dog treats tastes like a low-sugar cookie. It’s not uncommon at trade shows for folks to pick up our treats and eat them.”

If that makes your stomach churn, it shouldn’t. Wet Noses, which employs about 100, uses only non-GMO, human-grade quality ingredients, without corn, wheat, soy, preservatives or artificial ingredients. The company shops locally for ingredients, is energy efficient, nearly paperless, and composts and recycles to reduce the effects of product packaging and manufacturing.

Simply put, human-grade food means no feed-grade meats or ingredients.

Johnni Rodgers and dog Kuma

Courtesy of Wet Noses Natural Dog Treat Company

“We have created a human food environment and we’re selling it to pets,” Rodgers says. “And really the significance of that comes down to how the food is prepared, the ingredients that we use and the quality around both of those things.”

Galligan founded Wet Noses 24 years ago after baking human-grade dog treats in her garage after she couldn’t find healthy treats in stores. That focus on quality was rare at the time. It’s not anymore. Big brands are now involved, but Rodgers points out that it’s rare to find a pet-food manufacturer that is a 100% human-grade facility like Wet Noses.

Rodgers says it’s challenging to market Wet Noses because of confusion over terms such as “organic” and “human grade.” She adds that similar facilities also produce human food, with pet food on the side. Wet Noses is one of the few that manufactures only pet food in such a facility.

Wet Noses products tend to be 15 to 20 cents higher per ounce than other pet foods and are found in both large chains such as Petco and neighborhood specialty pet food shops. The company has a “Doggy Delicious” brand for mass grocers such as Safeway, Albertsons and Costco. Unlike Wet Noses, most Doggy Delicious products aren’t organic but still qualify as human-grade food.

Wet Noses, a private company, doesn’t disclose its finances, but Rodgers projects revenue will grow about 40% annually the next several years. And while the company sends its food to a lab for testing, it relies on its “in-house taste testers” – the pets of employees – for quality control.

“We have some tough critics when it comes to our treats,” she says.