Dog food company in line for top 50

media release –

NZ's fastest growing fresh raw natural dog food company in line for top 50 fastest growing company ranking

New Zealand's fastest growing dog food company K9 Natural Food is in line to be among the top 10 fastest growing companies when the Deloitte top 50 companies are named later this month.

The 2010 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 today they hoped their Christchurch company would be in the top 10.

``Our growth for the year to July was 720 percent for the period, which would have placed us fourth on the last year's list.

``Sales since July have been much stronger. For example, sales for October are at the same level of all last year's sales and November is looking similarly strong. We export 85 percent of our food and we are forecasting sale to go beyond $15 million in the next financial year,'' Smith said.

K9 Natural Food has more than doubled exports in two years while the domestic market has jumped 70 percent a year. Their biggest exports are to the USA, Europe and Hong Kong but they also go to Japan, Korea, Singapore, Australia and Taiwan.

The NZ Export Credit Office has been instrumental in the success in the USA, Smith said.

``We have been incredibly aggressive in our marketing. We have 15 full time staff at the moment and seven of them are overseas on marketing trips.

``We have managed to grow in the recent tricky conditions so hopefully making the top 50 Will open new doors for new customers here and overseas.''

Smith said the focus was on export sales but they were beginning to significantly increase distribution in New Zealand to ensure NZ dogs had better access to high quality food.

K9 Natural Food was founded by Geoff Bowers. 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.

He was a British marine based in Pompeii; saw active service in the Falkland's war and numerous other theatres. He moved to New Zealand in 1990 but went back to the UK after a call up for the Iraq war before finally settling with his Kiwi partner (now wife Diane).

The former British Home office dog handling instructor and policeman transferred from Auckland to Christchurch in 2003 and set up K9 Natural Foods five years ago. 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.

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