Natura and the Proctor & Gamble problem...

Hello humans!

OK, OK, I am well aware of how long it’s been since I last put paw to key-board. I haven’t forgotten about you, my loyal readers...all three of you...but, things have just been jumping, around Zane + Zara’s. We’ve been busier than me trying to grab my tail. And if you’ve seen my tail, you’d understand the futility. There are new toys, new chewy things and new foods. (Insert sales pitch here.) We have been on a drive to prep the store for Retro on Roscoe. Last year was big for us and we hope this year will be even bigger.

Back to my original train of thought: The past few months have been about change. One of the biggest changes recently has been a change of ownership for one of our premier dog food manufactures: Natura. You’ll know them more readily by their brand names: Evo, Innova and California Natural. Natura was sold to one of the largest and most successful multi-national corporations on the planet: Proctor and Gamble. (Am I using a lot of colons or what?) This sale to P & G was completely unexpected by everyone. Natura has a sterling reputation as a family owned company that truly has the best interests of dogs and cats at heart...until now. Now it is a meer cog in a vast, world-wide machine who seems to have it’s hands in everything but car manufacturing. Honestly, have you ever gone to the P & G web-site? Two-hundred and fifty (250) brands are represented. Two-hundred and fifty!!! Honestly, I saw that and soiled myself a little. Not only do you find household names like Tide and Febreeze but some real obscure stuff too. Oh, and something called Dash. John just howled when he saw that one! Evidently, it is a laundry detergent that calls into question John’s ability to state his age as 29. (One look at him does that for me but, I digress.) P & G is a huge company and they just swallowed whole our wonderful Natura. This does not look good.

And you see, this is where I wanted to start this missive. We have been getting call after call after call from customers wanting to switch their dogs or cats from Natura products. Their faith has been shaken by the take-over by P & G. You see, P & G has a reputation within the pet food industry and it’s not sterling. They own IAMS and Eukenuba. (Blech!) These are not what you’d refer to as “high-end” pet foods. You would never compare them to Natura or Fromm or Orijen. Kibbles and Bits maybe but...I think I just threw up a little. The internet chatter on these two products alone is frightening. The talk of testing on animals by P & G is enough to stop your heart. But what is really a concern, not that testing on animals is not a concern, is what kind of changes are in store for Natura.

Everything we retailers are being told is that nothing is going to change at Natura. The formulas will stay the same and the ingredients will stay the same. In the mean time there are stores that are removing Natura products from their shelvs. Is this a moral objection to P & G or do they know something we, at Zane + Zara’s, don’t? I don’t know and the questions and statements keep coming. It is enough to make me want to hide our Natura products behind a curtain and only sell them out the back door. P & G must have been salivating to get Natura into their folds. Here was a high-end pet food company that had products to compare with the likes of Orijen, Wellness, Fromm, Merrick, Canide, etc. What Natura lacked is just what P & G brought to the table: deep pockets for research and development and marketing muscle like few other companies in the world. To tell the truth, if we could trust them, it would seem to be a marriage made in heaven. Ask the guy who invented the Swiffer. Nothing spells success like a great product hooking up with P & G. On the otherhand, nothing breeds mediocraty like a huge corporation and an army of accountants. Let’s face it, life at a company like P & G is always about the bottom line. And there is our fear. Just how long until some ratty accountant discovers that you can source chicken from China, still say chicken on the ingredients list and pocket the savings with the consumer no wiser? I’m not saying this is going to happen but just how long is the Made in the USA banner going to survive the onslaught? P & G says that there are no plans to alter Natura products and that it will be a “stand-alone” brand that allows them to pierce the ultra-premium pet food market. Are we just supposed trust them? And really, just who are we supposed to trust?

Every pet food out in the modern market says they’re the best thing since sliced bread. I guess no one wants to be known for their short comings but, have you read any labels lately? Short comings is being generous to say the least. Now, we all know that price is a driver of consumer purchases but do you really have to buy the cheapest dog food you can? That people actually buy Bil-Jac dog food is stunning. We are members of your family and you are feeding us crap! There, off on a tangent again. Sorry. The point is, we believe what we read and we think that just because it’s in print it’s the truth. P.T. Barnum said it well, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” I hate to tell you but the beef stew ingredients on the package of Beneful dog food bears little resemblance to what is actually in the bag. And those colorful little morsels in the bag are colorful for you not us. Remember, we don’t see color so well. So, who do you trust? You can’t trust corporate america, you can’t trust the news media, you can’t trust the internet, the Wallstreet Journal is now owned by Fox and CNN is owned by Time-Warner. The average person on the street get his or her news through vile gossip sights like TMZ or infotainment channels like MSNBC or FOX. Who do you trust?

Well, that’s a tough call. At Zane + Zara’s we read a lot. We sift through information about pet food in general and various brands specifically. If you want to talk food we happily bring out our laptops and start comparing ingredient lists. We try to match our customer’s wants with the needs of their companions. We never take anyone’s word without back-up or at least some history. Our rep for Natura is a man named Ross. He has been our rep since we opened our doors. He is, we believe, a stand-up guy. We do not take his assertions lightly. We believe that if there was a problem at Natura it would manifest itself through Ross. You see, Ross, we believe, comes off as a rotten liar and we think he would have a difficult time shilling for a substandard product. Come the day that Natura products become another IAMS or Eukenuba we believe that Ross will leave. When Ross leaves we will leave too. While we may not have much to believe in these days, we do believe in Ross. This is the nature of relationships.

So there you have it. The god’s honest truth is that nobody knows anything but what their own experiences tell them. I can read an ingredients list and tell you why these ingredients are superior to others. But can I guarantee their sources? Can I even guarantee the veracity of the list itself? I cannot. How do I know that Orijen or Evo are really all that their prices promise? Well, they have reputations. We’ve also done taste tests. But beyond that, everything else is just second-hand information. John just had a converstion with Jack Henry’s dad. He had been told about the P & G buyout of Natura. This was the day after John had recommended putting Jack Henry on California Natural because of some intestinal distress that he was suffering. “Should we try Fromm instead?” All John could tell him was the truth, California Natural is the “go to” food for dogs that had sensitive digestive tracts. Once Jack Henry was stable we could start testing other foods. What was most important was getting JH over his issues. And as for the P & G buyout: As long as Ross is still around I don’t have an issue with having Natura products on our shelves. Come the day that Ross goes, so does the food. 

As for the testing on animals...that is a blog for another day. My paws are tired and my eyes are beginning to cross. It’s nap time.