Monday, January 19, 2015LISBON, Ohio -- A Columbiana County manufacturer watches with satisfaction each year as more and more of its business goes to the dogs – and the cats, and yes, even the ferrets.
Ohio Pet Foods Inc., a co-packer and brand manufacturer of premium pet food that ships its products worldwide, recently completed a $2 million expansion and upgrade at its complex here and expects business to thrive this year.
“We’re up by double digits,” says Matt Golladay, vice president of Blackwood Pet Foods, the brand of the parent company.
Ohio Pet Foods acquired the Blackwood brand four years ago and has since taken it from a regional market to global distribution. “We bought the brand in 2010 and have expanded sales to several other countries as well as 40% to 50% of the U.S,” he says.
Blackwood is a “super” premium pet food, that is, it’s made in small batches that have a high nutritional content, Golladay says.
The U.S. market has increasingly trended toward this type of food for domesticated pets, he notes, and consumers are starting to shy away from larger producers and are instead shifting their business to smaller, specialty brands and manufacturers such as Blackwood.
“They’re seeing pets more like family members and they’re putting more energy into looking up who makes a better pet food,” Golladay says. “It’s good that the general consumer is getting tired of big, big, big, and is starting to seek out small.”
Blackwood and Ohio Pet Foods is a family-operated business established in 1978 by Golladay’s father, grandfather and a cousin. The company initially produced generic-brand food for retail chains such as Phar-Mor, but then made the transition to premium pet food. “We learned that it wasn’t going to be our sweet spot,” he explains, “so we got into premium and super premium foods.”
The strategy worked.
Not only has the Blackwood brand taken off, Ohio Pet Foods today manufactures food for about a dozen other brands sold all over the world. “It’s a whole line designed for that use. They own the brand. We do the manufacturing,” he says.
Today, the company finds itself with a steady business of producing premium food for dogs, cats and ferrets.
“More people keep ferrets as pets than you would think,” he adds. “They have a diet similar to a cat. We manufacture for three or four different brands and we export half of that.”
This year, the U.S. pet supplies industry is projected to surpass $60 billion in sales for the first time, and roughly $23 billion of those sales are in pet food, Golladay cites.
Meanwhile, the Blackwood product is starting to gain traction in the Mahoning Valley. “You couldn’t buy Blackwood within 50 miles of here,” Golladay says. “Now, we’re starting to get into some local stores.”
Among them are Harbor Pet in Boardman, Larry’s Drive-Thru and Mini Mart in Poland and Bo’s Pet Shoppe in Columbiana. Online sales are also gaining strength: Among these sites are Chewy.com, Dog.com, PetFoodDirect.com and Wag.com.
Still, the bulk of Blackwood’s business remains exports, Golladay says, citing increased international demand because the United States is regarded as the premier source of pet food across the globe. The company enjoys worldwide exposure through distributors in Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Indonesia, Israel and Canada.
“The U.S. product is internationally known as the best,” Golladay says. “Our ingredient supply chain is better than anywhere in the world.”
Access to these ingredients, along with a newly installed sophisticated batching and mixing operation, allows Blackwood and Ohio Pet Foods to flourish in a very competitive global market.
The company’s complex in Lisbon employs 56, while a second in New York – the company purchased a majority stake in a competitor there several years ago – employs 60, he reports.
Last August, Ohio Pet Foods finished a $2 million upgrade of its batch house at the Lisbon plant, a measure that enables the company to mix its ingredients much faster and more efficiently than ever before.
“The old batching shack was small and it was basically all manual control,” says Glenn Brogan, batch control supervisor. Today, the new operation houses a command center that serves as the central nervous system of the entire mixing and blending operation.
Computer monitors track every order, every bin and can precisely calibrate precisely the amount of ingredients used per each product and order.
“It’s made it a lot easier,” Brogan notes. “Computers are doing a lot of the work, but it still takes a lot of learning.”
More than 20,000 tons of pet food is produced at the plant every year, Golladay says.
Material such as chicken meal, lamb meal and salmon meal are trucked to the plant each day and poured into a hopper outside the batch house and then conveyed inside the plant, all the while monitored by computers.
Once the base meal is moved into the batch operation, ingredients pre-programmed into the system such as vitamins, minerals, and specialty grains stored inside are automatically dispensed and blended in large vats.
On this day, the system is scheduled to mix chicken, salmon and lamb products, Golladay says. When the right mix is attained, the blend is transferred to an extruder that adds steam, water and pressure to cook the batch.
“The process of pressure cooking creates the shape of the kibble, then it’s cut and dried, which finishes the process.”
Golladay equates the process to using Play-Doh, because the material is pushed through a die that forms the shape of the piece of food.
A blade at the end of the extrusion line chops the material into small bits and then they are dried, packaged and shipped to customers.
Cooking temperatures range from 180 degrees to well above 200 degrees and vary by product, Golladay says. The extrusion cooks a single batch, about 4,000 pounds, at a time.
There are countless shapes and designs that the company uses for pet food, Golladay relates. A horse treat the company manufactures, for example, is in the shape of a shamrock.
“We have customers that ask for all kinds of things,” he says
The new batching system is the first phase of what will be a major upgrade of other segments of the production operation.
“This expansion was a must-have in order to expand the next step, which is the extrusion line,” Golladay says. “Our extruder is an older model, and what they can do with the current models is far faster.”
One improvement to the extrusion process is how the bits are transferred to the dryer once they are cooked: “When it comes out of the extruder it’s placed on a belt that takes it to the dryer. Now, what’s more modern is an air system that vacuums and places the pieces on the dryer. It’s more efficient.”
Another key to the company’s success over the years is experience, an asset as valuable as any technological upgrade, he says.
“My father came up with the recipes,” Golladay relates, and although the computers are calibrated to dispense the proper ingredients for each batch, creating a popular product ultimately comes down to knowing your customer.
“Where experience comes in is when you recognize that if you have this much of an ingredient, or a certain percentage of that ingredient, the dog or cat won’t like the taste,” he adds.
Another advantage for Golladay is a ready and willing test market for the pet food.
“I have two Yorkies at home,” he says with a laugh. “We bring samples home and see how it goes. That’s something software won’t tell you.”
Pictured: Matt Golladay, is vice president of Blackwood Pet Foods, the name brand owned by parent company Ohio Pet Foods Inc.
Copyright 2015 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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