November 9, 2011

Christchurch’s K9 Natural named top NZ manufacturer; achieving 1875% annual export growth

New Zealand’s fastest growing pet food company K9 Natural Food is among the top five fastest growing companies in the country because of its massive export growth.

Christchurch-based K9 Natural was tonight named in the top five of the Deloitte top 50 fastest growing companies. It was named top manufacturer in New Zealand and top exporter in Canterbury/ upper South Island.

The Deloitte Fast 50 is the index for New Zealand’s growing businesses. The Fast 50 has become synonymous with some of New Zealand’s most successful businesses from the past decade such as 42 Below, HRV and Trade Me.

K9 Natural Food chief executive Calvin Smith said tonight their annual export growth had climbed 1875 percent with increased sales in Japan, Canada, the US and Australia especially. Overall growth resulted in a 797 percent increase.

``Sales in the later part of this year have been stronger than the early part of the year. The sales growth has been driven by expanding the domestic distribution network and the launch of Feline Natural , cat food. The sales growth for the next six months will be driven by launching the frozen product into North America and Australia.

``Exports are currently accounting for approximately 70 percent of total sales at the moment. Our huge export growth was due to the company focusing primarily on export sales. More recently we have looked at the domestic market and have doubled domestic sales in the last six months.

``We lost about three weeks of production time due to the earthquakes. This was largely due to staff requiring time off to deal with their personal issues. Many of the staff and management have lost their homes but the factory has not been affected.’’

K9 Natural currently exports to 18 countries including Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, UK, Canada and USA.

They are the only raw dog food manufacturer in the world that can simultaneously export to North America, Asia and Europe. Now they have launched Feline Natural cat food, based on consumer demand, and it is tipped to take off.

Smith said the pet industry continued to surprise as to the size and the strength of it. It was one of only five industries that had grown since the global financial crisis. There was also a strong drive towards more natural products within the industry.

``We continue to find a raft of opportunities which are becoming difficult to explore all of them, purely based on the number and scale of them. For that reason we are considering whether we should raise some capital to ensure that we can take full advantage of these opportunities. A decision will be made before the end of the year.’’

K9 Natural Food was founded by Geoff Bowers and Bruce Mayhew in 2006. As a police dog handler and dog trainer, Bowers and one of his dogs recovered the largest haul of ecstasy in the European Union (EU) with over stg12million (pounds) street value. He also had the top arrest rate in the UK with over 300 people a year.

Bowers has eaten both the raw and freeze dried K9 Natural dog food which is the only fresh raw 100 percent complete diet sourced from animals deemed fit for human consumption on the market in most countries worldwide.

To learn what dogs should eat, Bowers spent three months in frozen Alaska up in the Arctic studying feeding habits of the grey wolf. He said DNA showed dogs were 99.8 percent wolf and their digestive system was exactly the same, so it made sense to base their diet on that of the wolf. K9 Natural aims to feed up to one percent of the world's 100 million dogs, for which it would produce 250 tonnes of K9 a day.

ENDS

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