Entering the saturated pet nutrition market as a startup can be daunting, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t resources available for accelerating a brand’s early-stage growth. SKU is one such resource, and in 2023 the organization is offering its first accelerator track dedicated to pet care startups. One of the four participants in the inaugural pet track is DREAM (Dogs Rule Everything Around Me) Pet Food, a dog treat brand “where hip-hop and pet treats collide.”
The DREAM Pet Food brand — which also participated in the 2023 Leap Venture Studio SuperZoo Pitch Competition in partnership with the Black Pet Business Network — was founded by pet industry veterans Jaime Cooper and Paul Paige, who sought to combine nostalgia of the 80s-era hip-hop with modern expectations for quality pet treats.
Source: DREAM Pet Food“We talk all the time about representation in the industry,” Cooper said. “We go here a lot [industry] conferences and, unfortunately, we don’t see many people who look like us. So, through those conversations, Paul and I were like… ‘I think there’s a white space in this industry for something that represents our culture and the music that we grew up loving.’”
In this episode of More Than Kibble, Pet Food Processing Editor Kimberlie Clyma joins Buff Greebe, executive director of SKU, and Cooper to discuss how SKU’s pet care accelerator program is giving DREAM and other industry companies the mentorship and exposure they need to take their business to the next level that level.
Show notes
0:40 – Introducing Buff Greebe and Jaime Cooper
1:40 – What is a SKU?
2:56 – Pet care SKU entry
3:28 – The vision behind DREAM Pet Food
4:50 – Bringing the DREAM vision to life through branding
5:43 – DREAM’s partnership with SKU
6:47 – The importance of mentorship for startups
8:57 – How access to mentoring DREAM has benefited
10:29 – How SKU finds experts to mentor its startup partners
11:38 – Showcase Day, from a SKU perspective
12:17 – Showcase Day, from Cooper’s perspective
13:42 – What happens after Showcase Day?
15:18 – How the SKU experience can power the future of DREAM
16:30 – Planned branding improvement as a result of SKU mentorship
18:10 – How pet industry brands can participate in the SKU program
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