Best Bets For Pets

Listen to Episode #339 Now:

Transcript:

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Announcer: This is Pet Life Radio.

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Announcer: Let's Talk Pets.

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Michelle Fern: Hello, pet lovers.

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Michelle Fern: Welcome to Best Bets for Pets.

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Michelle Fern: I'm your show host, Michelle Fern.

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Michelle Fern: So, you know, a lot of people are now...

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Michelle Fern: We're buying our pets premium food.

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Michelle Fern: Our dogs are eating, you know, raw, they're eating fresh.

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Michelle Fern: It's a whole new world out there.

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Michelle Fern: Well, wait till you meet my guest today.

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Michelle Fern: He invented a product that does it all for you, and it's quite incredible.

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Michelle Fern: Stay tuned, you don't want to miss this.

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Announcer: You know the expression, cats have nine lives.

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Announcer: Well, what if you can give them one more?

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Announcer: The Give Them Ten movement is on a mission to help give cats an extra life.

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Announcer: How?

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Announcer: With spay and neuter.

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Announcer: Spaying or neutering your cat helps them live a longer, healthier life, and it helps control free roaming cat populations too.

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Announcer: Learn more about the benefits of spay and neuter, and meet Scooter, the neutered cat, at givethemten.org.

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Announcer: That's GiveThemT-E-N dot org.

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Announcer: Let's talk pets on petliferadio.com.

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Michelle Fern: Welcome back, everyone.

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Michelle Fern: I'd like to welcome Matt Terrill.

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Michelle Fern: He is the co-founder and CEO of Operations of ChefPaw.

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Michelle Fern: Welcome, Matt.

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Matt Terrill: Thank you for having me here.

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Matt Terrill: I'm really excited to be on PetLife Radio.

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Michelle Fern: I'm so excited to have you.

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Michelle Fern: Can you share a little bit about your background?

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Matt Terrill: Well, yeah, I grew up in Manhattan Beach, California, and went to the University of California at Santa Barbara.

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Matt Terrill: And I knew pretty fast that what I wanted to do was something around pets.

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Matt Terrill: My dog, specifically, I wanted to make life better for dogs.

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Matt Terrill: And shortly after graduating college, my Labrador had a bad ear infection, and I invented a tool to solve it and got a patent on that.

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Matt Terrill: It's an ear applicator for ear medicines and ear cleaners.

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Matt Terrill: And I thought that's just the perfect way to start a business around an actual need and a unique, innovative product.

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Matt Terrill: So me and my best friend at the time, we created InnoVet Pet Products, and that was 2005.

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Matt Terrill: And since then, we've been using the needs and the problems that our pets encountered where there wasn't a better solution.

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Matt Terrill: And we used those as opportunities to try and find innovations and try and make things better for our own pets.

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Matt Terrill: And that's what's led us to success.

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Matt Terrill: And that's what led us about three years ago to get into the pet food market in an incredibly unique way.

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Matt Terrill: And that's how ChefPaw got created.

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Michelle Fern: Okay, thank you for that.

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Michelle Fern: And now let's talk about ChefPaw, kind of briefly, because we're going to go into more detail.

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Michelle Fern: But so people know what we're talking about.

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Michelle Fern: If you can kind of describe it as well, that would be great.

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Matt Terrill: Oh, yeah.

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Matt Terrill: So ChefPaw is the first of its kind at home dog food maker.

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Matt Terrill: And it cooks and it mixes.

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Matt Terrill: And it's about the size of a blender.

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Matt Terrill: It's a countertop appliance.

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Matt Terrill: It doesn't use up too much electricity.

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Matt Terrill: And you just put the fresh ingredients in it, ingredients from any grocery store, turn the machine on, and 40 minutes later, you have six pounds of cooked and mixed dog food.

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Matt Terrill: And we developed an app too, that comes along with it to give people a thorough guide, step by step of how to add ingredients into the machine, because the machine has a built in scale.

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Matt Terrill: And so it really makes everything streamlined and straightforward.

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Michelle Fern: So we're going to talk more about this later, but you really thought, I mean, you really thought this out.

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Michelle Fern: ChefPaw, there's a scale.

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Michelle Fern: There is a, it does it all in one, you know, chops the ingredients, cooks the ingredients, weighs the ingredients.

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Michelle Fern: I mean, it's really user friendly.

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Michelle Fern: Is that what you were thinking when you came up with it?

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Michelle Fern: We have to do everything all in one?

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Matt Terrill: Well, yeah, the original inspiration behind it was I've been on a quest ever since I had my own dog in 2000.

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Matt Terrill: I've been on a quest to find the best dog food.

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Matt Terrill: And over years and years, that led me to fresh store bought dog food.

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Matt Terrill: And then I noticed that what my really active Labrador was not able to get enough calories.

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Matt Terrill: I was having to feed him large, really large portions, which I felt dangerously large portions.

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Matt Terrill: And then my other dog, a bulldog, he developed food allergies.

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Matt Terrill: And so I needed to find a way to customize that fresh food.

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Matt Terrill: And so that's where I started going down a quest of trying to see how can I recreate the best store-bought fresh foods and customize them really, really easily.

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Matt Terrill: So when I suspected that my bulldog was allergic to chicken, I put him on a novel protein diet that had definitely no chicken in it.

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Matt Terrill: And then once that once after being on the novel protein diet for two months, and that resolved all of his symptoms, I used our original prototype ChefPaw machines to change one ingredient at a time in his recipe, in order to identify which foods he was allergic to and how to customize it.

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Matt Terrill: And we actually started off making unreasonably large machines that were making like a hundred pounds of dog food at a time.

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Matt Terrill: But once we nailed down the proof of concept and the recipes that we were developing, cured my bulldog's skin allergies and his food allergies, and got my Labrador enough energy to where he could have a normal size meal and be gaining weight.

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Matt Terrill: Then we knew we were really onto something, and we began working on scaling the machines that we, the prototype machines down to the smallest that they could be and be really effective and make a decent size batch quickly.

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Matt Terrill: And that's where we settled with the current ChefPaw machine making six pounds in 40 minutes.

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Michelle Fern: Okay, we're going to talk more about how it actually works and the app on our second half, but a few more questions.

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Michelle Fern: So thank you.

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Michelle Fern: That was great information on how it came about.

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Michelle Fern: What if you buy fresh food, but your dog doesn't have allergies is not super active?

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Michelle Fern: Because most dogs are not too active, but some are, but most are not.

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Michelle Fern: So for the average dog at home, what is the benefit of making your own dog food versus, let's take it a step further, say you're not buying fresh versus canned and dry food together?

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Michelle Fern: A lot of people do wet food, some do wet and dry.

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Michelle Fern: Fewer, I think, from my experience, do just dry.

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Michelle Fern: So what are the benefits just making your own food versus buying canned and everything?

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Michelle Fern: I mean, prices have gone up for dog food, like double in the last three years.

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Matt Terrill: Oh, yeah.

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Matt Terrill: Yeah.

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Matt Terrill: Yeah.

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Matt Terrill: Tell me about it.

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Matt Terrill: That's what that was.

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Matt Terrill: That was the second motivator behind it was the price.

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Matt Terrill: I was spending over a thousand dollars a month for two average sized dogs, and that was really bad.

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Michelle Fern: And I mean, it's a fresh food, though, right?

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Matt Terrill: Yeah.

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Matt Terrill: Yeah.

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Matt Terrill: And all that aside, the first real benefit is their poops, their poops becoming easy to pick up.

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Matt Terrill: I'm sure a lot of pet parents out there have encountered the horrible situation where you switch to a new food, whether it's fresh or dry or canned, and their bowels don't react to it well, and it makes an absolute mess.

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Matt Terrill: And especially if you have more than one dog, then the first dog makes a mess, the second dog steps in it, and then it's just chaos.

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Matt Terrill: So yeah, so that is one of the things we're very proud of is with our recipes, dogs get perfect poops right off the bat.

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Matt Terrill: There's little to no transition that's needed to go from dry food or canned food over to our recipes.

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Matt Terrill: And that's one of my favorite things about it really, that I don't have to, the messes that I've avoided.

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Michelle Fern: So wait, so if there's good poops, that means that they're digesting it without a lot of issues.

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Matt Terrill: Oh yeah, thanks for bringing that up.

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Matt Terrill: That was the other thing that I noticed too, is hands down, fresh food was better than all the dry and canned foods out there.

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Matt Terrill: I was noticing that no matter how expensive of fresh foods I was buying, the dogs were having irregular bowel movements and you could see half of the ingredients in their poop undigested because it's either undercooked or two larger pieces were not cut into small enough pieces.

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Matt Terrill: Yeah, so it was a combination of spending $1,000 a month on the best store-bought dog food that I could get, plus seeing them making a mess of when they're pooping everywhere and then seeing that they're not digesting a lot of those ingredients that I'm paying top dollar for.

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Matt Terrill: And so part of the original mission with the ChefPaw was make sure that it's not enough to just have fresh food.

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Matt Terrill: It needs to be cooked perfectly.

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Matt Terrill: And so that it's digestible.

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Matt Terrill: And the flip side of that is it's got to be not overcooked.

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Matt Terrill: So many of the foods out there are overcooked, whether it's fresh or I mean, kibble by definition is overcooked.

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Matt Terrill: But a lot of the fresh foods out there, and when people make homemade foods too, they tend to overcook it.

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Matt Terrill: And that comes with its own set of problems.

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Michelle Fern: Let me ask you this.

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Michelle Fern: What about raw, which I'm going to try to keep my opinion out of that.

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Michelle Fern: So, but I'm passionate about my opinion on raw food.

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Michelle Fern: But what about raw?

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Michelle Fern: Because I've heard that a lot of guests recently and learned a lot about raw.

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Michelle Fern: And a lot of people think raw is the way to go.

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Michelle Fern: But ChefPaw cooks the food.

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Matt Terrill: Yeah, that's a good point.

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Matt Terrill: We cook at a very low temperature.

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Matt Terrill: So I think the raw diet is great.

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Matt Terrill: It's really great.

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Matt Terrill: It's a tremendous improvement.

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Matt Terrill: And I really applaud people that try it.

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Matt Terrill: But for every five people that we've talked to who say that they're on the raw diet and they really like it, we come across 10 people who say that they tried the raw diet and had a horrible experience with it.

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Matt Terrill: And that horrible experience usually winds up at some point being like a salmonella contamination that gets the dog very sick or their children very sick.

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Matt Terrill: And so basically, the ChefPaw recipes in the machine, it's designed to take all the benefits of raw and just cook it just enough so that you've sanitized it and eliminated any harmful bacteria.

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Matt Terrill: And to that end, people still said there are a lot of people that would say, hey, any cooking at all is going to destroy nutrients.

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Michelle Fern: That's not true.

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Matt Terrill: Well, yeah, on some level, as you heat, there are things that will break down.

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Matt Terrill: But to prove that, once and for all, a few months ago, we sent in samples of our primary recipe.

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Matt Terrill: Well, we have over 40 recipes, but our recipe number one, we sent it in to get tested.

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Matt Terrill: We made one batch of it with our machine, but we didn't cook it and we just blended it.

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Matt Terrill: Our machine has many different speeds.

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Matt Terrill: It can mix really gently and make it chunky, or you can turn up the mixing speed and blend it to a complete puree if needed.

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Matt Terrill: So we took one batch and just blended it.

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Matt Terrill: No heat, no cooking whatsoever.

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Matt Terrill: And then sent that in for testing, and then made an identical batch and blended it up just as much, but cooked it at the normal ChefPaw cooking temperatures, which is 100 C or 212 degrees Fahrenheit.

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Matt Terrill: And what happens is when it's cooked in the ChefPaw machine, the food is really only encountering temperatures that are above about 160 Fahrenheit for the last 10 minutes of the cooking cycle.

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Matt Terrill: So the food's only encountering low temperature cooking only for a few minutes toward the end of the cooking cycle.

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Matt Terrill: And it's just enough to soften things like carrots and sweet potatoes and rice, but it's not enough to break down nutrients.

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Matt Terrill: And so we sent in the second sample of the cooked and blended recipe.

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Matt Terrill: We were surprised to find that I expected to find at least a little bit of a breakdown.

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Matt Terrill: There was virtually none.

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Matt Terrill: There was less than 2% moisture loss from the cooking, and there was virtually no caloric loss.

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Matt Terrill: There were even things like some carbohydrates were increased because starches were converted over.

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Matt Terrill: And we tested for zinc amounts and iodine amounts and vitamins and all that, and it didn't break down.

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Matt Terrill: There was no appreciable, no statistically appreciable breakdown of any of the nutrients when you cook with our ChefPaw machine.

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Michelle Fern: So, I was right.

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Michelle Fern: I love to be right, but I didn't really know that I was right, but I understand what you're saying, and you hit on it when you said about raw.

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Michelle Fern: That's one thing that bothers me is that there's bacteria in raw.

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Michelle Fern: So, I'm not discounting raw, but there's bacteria, so you have to be aware of that.

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Michelle Fern: Yeah.

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Michelle Fern: We're going to take a short break.

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Michelle Fern: We'll be right back.

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Michelle Fern: Molly, here's your dinner.

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Michelle Fern: Zeus, that's not your food.

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00:13:51.285 --> 00:13:54.825
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00:13:54.825 --> 00:14:00.605
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00:14:00.605 --> 00:14:03.125
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00:14:03.125 --> 00:14:10.865
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00:14:10.865 --> 00:14:13.105
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00:14:13.105 --> 00:14:17.465
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00:14:17.465 --> 00:14:20.525
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00:14:20.525 --> 00:14:23.265
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00:14:23.265 --> 00:14:24.545
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00:14:25.585 --> 00:14:29.385
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Announcer: Let's Talk Pets, on PetLife Radio

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Michelle Fern: Welcome back, everyone.

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Michelle Fern: We're talking to Matt Terrill.

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Michelle Fern: He is the co-founder and CEO of Operations for ChefPaw.

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Michelle Fern: We had a very lively first part of the show, and I'm excited to get on to the second part.

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Michelle Fern: So we talked about the importance of ChefPaw, you know, what it does, the light cooking for the nutritional benefits, they're there, they're just, it seems like there's not much of a difference between raw and the ChefPaw cooking.

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Matt Terrill: Yeah, just no, there's no, it's all the benefits of raw, but none of the risk of E coli.

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Michelle Fern: Very good.

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Michelle Fern: Is it similar to, okay, just so people have an idea, I haven't eaten red meat in more decades than I want to say, but is it similar to like maybe a rare steak where it's cooked a little bit so that it's safer to eat, but it's still, what would be a good visual as far as how lightly it's cooked?

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Matt Terrill: Well, that all depends on what mixing speed you select.

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Matt Terrill: There's four different cooking mixing speeds to choose from.

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Matt Terrill: The first one is very gentle.

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Matt Terrill: It rotates very slowly, maybe like 10 RPM, and the rotating blades, they're sharp on one side and dull on the other.

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Matt Terrill: And so what the basic number one speed setting does is it rotates toward the sharp blade direction for 30 seconds.

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Matt Terrill: And so it's doing very minor chopping and cutting and doing it slowly.

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Matt Terrill: And then every 30 seconds, it stops and it reverses its direction.

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Matt Terrill: And so now the dull side of the mixing blade is pushing the food.

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Matt Terrill: And so there's no cutting there, it's just mixing everything around.

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Matt Terrill: So that has the effect of distributing the heat evenly across all the food.

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Matt Terrill: So it's not going to be like a steak that's...

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Matt Terrill: Even though it's low temp, it's not quite analogous to a steak that's cooked rare because the steak is not getting cooked from the inside out.

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Matt Terrill: It's getting, for most cooking methods...

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Michelle Fern: There goes my analogy.

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Michelle Fern: OK, what would it be similar to?

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Matt Terrill: It would be similar to more like brown beef in a stew.

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Matt Terrill: The main part of it is to make sure everything is cooked evenly, and most pets really like chunky food.

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Matt Terrill: So we really designed the machine to cook at the lowest temperature possible and just get everything evenly cooked.

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Matt Terrill: I'm sure people that have tried cooking homemade before with a pressure cooker or an Instapot, they've noticed that the food on the outsides of the bowl will be cooked, but then the food in the center is not cooked because there's no mixing going on in those devices.

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Matt Terrill: So yeah, unfortunately, blenders don't cook and Instapots don't mix.

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Matt Terrill: And so we've done the ChefPaw's primary achievement is to combine both of those mixing and cooking into one machine.

00:17:56.838 --> 00:18:03.398
Matt Terrill: But that's not enough to get a successful batch reliably without having to put a lot of thought into it.

00:18:03.398 --> 00:18:06.618
Matt Terrill: And that's where the ChefPaw app that we developed comes in.

00:18:06.618 --> 00:18:07.718
Michelle Fern: I'm sorry to cut you off.

00:18:07.718 --> 00:18:10.018
Michelle Fern: It's exactly what I was going to ask you about.

00:18:10.018 --> 00:18:23.118
Michelle Fern: How does the app work because there's recipes in the app, there's some focus from the recipes on allergy, on nutrition, on renal health, on if you need low calorie.

00:18:23.118 --> 00:18:34.578
Matt Terrill: Oh yeah, we've come up with a lot of recipes, and they're all inspired by either my own pets, my family's pets, and our customers calling in and having a request.

00:18:34.578 --> 00:18:39.878
Matt Terrill: And I'm 100% certain that we're going to keep rolling out new recipes.

00:18:40.438 --> 00:18:44.198
Matt Terrill: I wouldn't be surprised if this time next year, we don't have a couple hundred recipes in the app.

00:18:44.198 --> 00:18:47.558
Michelle Fern: You think you'll ever have recipes for cats?

00:18:47.558 --> 00:18:48.198
Matt Terrill: Oh yeah.

00:18:48.198 --> 00:18:51.398
Matt Terrill: In fact, people have been asking us that every single day.

00:18:51.398 --> 00:18:56.878
Matt Terrill: And the reason why I haven't released that yet is because the cats are...

00:18:56.878 --> 00:19:06.158
Matt Terrill: Formulating a homemade recipe for a cat is a little more complicated than for dogs or for humans or any other pets, really.

00:19:09.618 --> 00:19:16.818
Matt Terrill: So we wanted to have more nutritionists and veterinarians give their feedback on what that would need to be.

00:19:16.818 --> 00:19:33.358
Matt Terrill: And there's a kind of a universal sentiment amongst the nutritionists and the veterinarians that unlike the wide variety of dog recipes that we have for cats, it needs to be just a much narrower set, just two.

00:19:34.118 --> 00:19:49.398
Matt Terrill: So we've been working on it and we actually just coincidentally sealed the deal with a board certified nutritionist to sign off and finalize two cat recipes.

00:19:49.398 --> 00:19:59.638
Matt Terrill: And we already, many months ago, we already finished on the back end of the software and the app, we created the ability to add more species.

00:20:01.278 --> 00:20:05.718
Matt Terrill: And so it's all I have to do is flip a switch and cats will be an option on there.

00:20:05.718 --> 00:20:14.578
Matt Terrill: We're, yeah, within just a couple of weeks, we're gonna have the first two cat recipes turned on and everyone will be able to use that.

00:20:14.578 --> 00:20:15.578
Michelle Fern: I can't wait.

00:20:15.578 --> 00:20:17.218
Matt Terrill: Thanks, I'm looking forward to it.

00:20:17.218 --> 00:20:20.838
Michelle Fern: I tested ChefPaw, but my dogs are in doggy heaven.

00:20:20.838 --> 00:20:28.678
Michelle Fern: So I had to test it for my nephew dog, Charlie, and for Tilly, my friend dog.

00:20:29.298 --> 00:20:33.098
Michelle Fern: So but cats and my cats eat everything.

00:20:33.098 --> 00:20:35.038
Michelle Fern: Even lettuce, Dennis likes lettuce.

00:20:35.278 --> 00:20:36.578
Michelle Fern: I don't get that.

00:20:36.578 --> 00:20:38.738
Michelle Fern: But all right.

00:20:38.738 --> 00:20:46.198
Michelle Fern: So earlier, when we were first talking, Matt, you mentioned you can cook six pounds of food in 40 minutes.

00:20:46.198 --> 00:20:51.218
Michelle Fern: I don't think my dogs ate nearly that much in a day.

00:20:51.218 --> 00:20:52.658
Michelle Fern: What is the average?

00:20:52.658 --> 00:20:55.438
Michelle Fern: Isn't it like, what is the average size portion?

00:20:55.438 --> 00:21:06.058
Matt Terrill: Well, the average size portion, I would probably be best defined by what the NRC calls it, and what all the NRC nutritional standards revolve around.

00:21:06.058 --> 00:21:10.958
Matt Terrill: And that's a 33-pound dog eating 1,000 calories a day.

00:21:10.958 --> 00:21:20.538
Matt Terrill: I don't know off the top of my head how many cups that is, but that's at least a week of food for the average dog.

00:21:20.538 --> 00:21:23.418
Michelle Fern: So this is easier than going to the store.

00:21:23.418 --> 00:21:27.438
Michelle Fern: I mean, you have to go to the store to buy the ingredients, but then for a week.

00:21:27.438 --> 00:21:33.678
Michelle Fern: And is it best to have it frozen, or is it best to just keep it fresh in your fridge for a week?

00:21:33.678 --> 00:21:36.498
Matt Terrill: Yeah, there's such a wide variety of applications.

00:21:36.498 --> 00:21:42.238
Matt Terrill: There's a lot of people that have small dogs where the six-pound batch would last a month.

00:21:42.238 --> 00:21:45.158
Matt Terrill: And so it's kind of excessive for them.

00:21:45.158 --> 00:21:49.298
Matt Terrill: And so they really opt to select the half-batch option in the app.

00:21:50.238 --> 00:22:06.498
Matt Terrill: Because the app gives you, regardless of what batch size you choose, the app gives you, well, let me say, regardless of which batch size you choose, and regardless of which recipe you choose, the app gives you step-by-step instructions on which ingredients to add and how much to the machine.

00:22:06.498 --> 00:22:12.078
Matt Terrill: And so a lot of people that have really small dogs, they opt to do the half-batch option.

00:22:12.078 --> 00:22:20.358
Matt Terrill: And that half-batch option will make 3.1 or 3.2 pounds in 20 minutes, sometimes 25, but basically in double the speed.

00:22:20.738 --> 00:22:32.738
Matt Terrill: There's a lot of other people who want even more that have much larger dogs, and so they opt to do batches back to back and then refrigerate the portions.

00:22:33.078 --> 00:22:45.318
Matt Terrill: There's actually people, a lot of people don't know this, but there's actually a lot of benefit to cooling the food all the way down to refrigeration temperature before reserving it.

00:22:45.618 --> 00:22:57.238
Matt Terrill: There's a, like, for example, rice, when you cook it fully and then refrigerate it down, the starches get converted into what's called a resistant starch.

00:22:57.238 --> 00:23:04.458
Matt Terrill: And so that the resistant starches feed the good gut bacteria and tend to reduce insulin spikes.

00:23:04.458 --> 00:23:08.138
Matt Terrill: Besides that, we never want to feed our dogs food that's too hot.

00:23:08.138 --> 00:23:12.458
Matt Terrill: So it's always best to refrigerate first before serving it to them.

00:23:13.138 --> 00:23:24.318
Matt Terrill: And if you have excess food for your dog, you made an excess number of batches or you have a small dog, it's completely fine to freeze the food also.

00:23:24.318 --> 00:23:28.638
Michelle Fern: Okay, freezing it and then, okay, so and there's de-thaw and there you go.

00:23:28.638 --> 00:23:34.318
Michelle Fern: Okay, so it's basically as easy as looking at the recipe, buying the ingredients.

00:23:34.318 --> 00:23:39.858
Matt Terrill: Yeah, and we've actually planned to take it a step further than that and make it even easier.

00:23:39.858 --> 00:23:46.018
Matt Terrill: You may have noticed in the app, there's, when you select a recipe, there's a button called Grocery List.

00:23:46.018 --> 00:24:09.778
Matt Terrill: And if you select that, it gives you a simple grocery list with check boxes next to each ingredient and a description of how much the, each, how much of each ingredient is needed in terms of grams or ounces or pounds, because some things in the store are sold in ounce sizes, others are sold in pound sizes.

00:24:10.418 --> 00:24:14.478
Matt Terrill: So it makes everything really, really streamlined there.

00:24:14.478 --> 00:24:17.218
Matt Terrill: And we're not stopping at that though.

00:24:17.218 --> 00:24:31.318
Matt Terrill: We're planning on combining that grocery list function with a same day delivery network, such as Smart and Final or like a Misfit Foods.

00:24:32.198 --> 00:24:42.838
Matt Terrill: We're reaching out to those companies to get that arrangement done, but we've already laid all of the infrastructure for it on the back end in the app.

00:24:42.838 --> 00:24:43.558
Matt Terrill: It's ready to go.

00:24:43.558 --> 00:24:51.378
Matt Terrill: All we have to do is just get a same day fulfillment grocery store to let us send customers to them.

00:24:51.618 --> 00:24:54.938
Matt Terrill: We're not even going to take a cut of it in any way.

00:24:54.938 --> 00:25:02.818
Matt Terrill: We just want our customers to have the easiest way to fulfill their grocery list at home.

00:25:02.818 --> 00:25:05.938
Matt Terrill: So it would be ideal if you don't even have to go to the grocery store.

00:25:06.438 --> 00:25:27.278
Matt Terrill: You just open up the app, select which recipe you want to make, select the grocery list, and then tap, and then select which ingredients you're short of, and then export that over to the Smart and Final, or the Same Day Delivery Network, and then rise at your door.

00:25:27.278 --> 00:25:28.258
Michelle Fern: Can't beat that.

00:25:28.258 --> 00:25:30.298
Michelle Fern: Okay, we have a couple more minutes.

00:25:30.298 --> 00:25:40.158
Michelle Fern: Let's talk about cost, because I know listeners, and I'm sure people are listening and saying, it sounds good, but it's probably going to cost a fortune.

00:25:40.158 --> 00:25:54.758
Michelle Fern: So I'm a big believer in how cost-effective something is, because there are times I will buy something that's inexpensive, and I use it once or twice, and it goes in the garbage, or it fails me, so what's the point?

00:25:54.758 --> 00:25:59.678
Michelle Fern: But sometimes if you spend the money on something, the effectiveness is worth it.

00:26:00.138 --> 00:26:03.498
Michelle Fern: So what's the cost of the ChefPaw?

00:26:03.498 --> 00:26:09.858
Matt Terrill: Well, the upfront cost of the ChefPaw on sale is going to be $5.99 right now.

00:26:09.858 --> 00:26:14.498
Matt Terrill: And we also have the...

00:26:14.498 --> 00:26:22.278
Matt Terrill: It's a firm payment method where you can break that down into monthly payments of, I believe, $49.

00:26:22.278 --> 00:26:24.838
Matt Terrill: But it pays for itself incredibly fast.

00:26:25.898 --> 00:26:35.778
Matt Terrill: In my circumstance, with just a Labrador and a Bulldog, even if I didn't own the company and I wasn't the inventor of this and I was just buying it at full retail price, it would pay for itself.

00:26:35.778 --> 00:26:38.558
Matt Terrill: Because like I said, I was spending $1,000 a month just food.

00:26:38.558 --> 00:26:41.398
Matt Terrill: I don't want to say the name of the company.

00:26:41.398 --> 00:26:50.458
Matt Terrill: I was spending $1,000 a month on what I felt was the best possible store bought food and still having a major problem with it.

00:26:50.538 --> 00:26:55.058
Matt Terrill: But in my specific case, it pays for itself in just a few weeks.

00:26:55.058 --> 00:26:57.418
Matt Terrill: The average person, it pays for itself.

00:26:57.418 --> 00:26:59.598
Matt Terrill: The machine would pay for itself in a few months.

00:26:59.598 --> 00:27:09.418
Michelle Fern: With average, so say if it's somebody that really wants to do something different for their dogs, they're going from canned to fresh.

00:27:09.418 --> 00:27:19.378
Michelle Fern: So probably for canned, they were probably spending cost of groceries today, probably about, we'll say a 40 pound dog, close to the 33.

00:27:20.198 --> 00:27:22.678
Michelle Fern: Probably about, what, 40 bucks a month?

00:27:22.678 --> 00:27:24.218
Matt Terrill: Well, yeah, I really like that.

00:27:24.218 --> 00:27:30.418
Matt Terrill: There's one common denominator behind all the dog foods and the regular foods and what we're used to, and that's cost per pound.

00:27:30.418 --> 00:27:33.178
Matt Terrill: I really like breaking everything down into cost per pound.

00:27:33.178 --> 00:27:38.598
Matt Terrill: That way you can have an apples for apples comparison of all the different food options.

00:27:38.598 --> 00:27:44.018
Matt Terrill: So the average kibble is going to cost about a dollar a pound.

00:27:44.018 --> 00:27:48.538
Matt Terrill: The best kibble can get up to about $1.50 or even $2 a pound.

00:27:49.038 --> 00:27:52.078
Matt Terrill: Canned food starts out a little bit higher than that.

00:27:52.078 --> 00:27:57.058
Matt Terrill: But fresh door-bought food, you can't really find it for under $2 a pound.

00:27:57.058 --> 00:28:02.198
Matt Terrill: And the average door-bought fresh food is going up to $4, $5.

00:28:02.198 --> 00:28:04.538
Matt Terrill: Some of them are even $10 to $20 a pound.

00:28:04.538 --> 00:28:08.778
Matt Terrill: And we're not talking about some exotic venison or some tuna.

00:28:10.258 --> 00:28:12.358
Matt Terrill: It's just door-bought dog food.

00:28:12.358 --> 00:28:13.638
Michelle Fern: I have a comment.

00:28:13.638 --> 00:28:15.038
Michelle Fern: Because you didn't say the name.

00:28:15.038 --> 00:28:16.618
Michelle Fern: I'm not going to say any names either.

00:28:17.198 --> 00:28:21.578
Michelle Fern: But when you said $1,000 a month for people that are listening, that are going, really?

00:28:21.578 --> 00:28:23.238
Michelle Fern: This was about a year ago.

00:28:23.238 --> 00:28:26.018
Michelle Fern: And I saw a dog food that this is when Mr.

00:28:26.018 --> 00:28:27.378
Michelle Fern: Z was still around.

00:28:27.378 --> 00:28:28.498
Michelle Fern: No, it was longer.

00:28:28.498 --> 00:28:29.438
Michelle Fern: This was for Nicky.

00:28:29.438 --> 00:28:30.278
Michelle Fern: Sorry.

00:28:30.278 --> 00:28:34.318
Michelle Fern: So I was looking at this brand and what it would cost.

00:28:34.318 --> 00:28:37.578
Michelle Fern: And this is for a 13-pound dog.

00:28:37.578 --> 00:28:39.458
Michelle Fern: He was 13 and 14 pounds.

00:28:39.458 --> 00:28:42.758
Michelle Fern: It was close to 300 for one.

00:28:42.758 --> 00:28:44.918
Michelle Fern: That was a couple of years ago.

00:28:45.398 --> 00:28:47.578
Michelle Fern: So $1,000 is not...

00:28:47.578 --> 00:28:50.458
Matt Terrill: Yeah, and it didn't start out at $1,000 per month.

00:28:50.458 --> 00:29:00.398
Matt Terrill: All these fresh food companies, they give you deals to get you in, and then it's not until like a month into it, and your dog's used to that food.

00:29:00.398 --> 00:29:06.198
Matt Terrill: And then the discounts and the deals stop, and you get the real price.

00:29:06.198 --> 00:29:08.438
Matt Terrill: And the real price is always shocking.

00:29:08.438 --> 00:29:13.218
Matt Terrill: And they do a really good job of obfuscating what the cost per pound is.

00:29:13.598 --> 00:29:20.758
Matt Terrill: They'll say, oh, we're going to be sending you 12 meals for $59.

00:29:20.758 --> 00:29:27.318
Matt Terrill: And then you're like, wait a minute, each meal is a couple ounces, so you're talking a few pounds.

00:29:27.318 --> 00:29:33.398
Matt Terrill: And then all of a sudden you realize, wait a minute, I just paid $59 for three pounds of food.

00:29:34.518 --> 00:29:36.138
Matt Terrill: We get that a lot from our customers.

00:29:36.138 --> 00:29:39.678
Matt Terrill: And really the only way is to look at it as cost per pound.

00:29:40.278 --> 00:29:47.858
Matt Terrill: And so in our app, when you select a recipe, it shows you what the average cost is going to be.

00:29:47.858 --> 00:29:54.838
Matt Terrill: And obviously we can't, we're not quoting, we can't tell you what the price is exactly going to be because it depends on what store you're going to.

00:29:54.838 --> 00:29:57.158
Matt Terrill: But we show the average price in there.

00:29:57.158 --> 00:30:02.538
Matt Terrill: And now the average price for our recipes is in the $2 range.

00:30:02.538 --> 00:30:16.658
Matt Terrill: We have some, we want to be extending ChefPaw into working with shelters and getting shelter dogs to be able to have good quality, fresh dog food that is free of all the typical allergies.

00:30:16.658 --> 00:30:20.878
Matt Terrill: So we'll have the best possible reaction to the widest variety of dogs.

00:30:20.878 --> 00:30:25.738
Matt Terrill: And to that end, we needed to make up really affordable recipes specifically for shelters.

00:30:25.738 --> 00:30:28.318
Matt Terrill: We call it the econ dog recipe set.

00:30:28.318 --> 00:30:31.518
Matt Terrill: I have four different econ dog recipes that we've made.

00:30:31.518 --> 00:30:34.978
Matt Terrill: They are down to, they're under $1.50 a pound.

00:30:35.018 --> 00:30:37.378
Michelle Fern: Wow, how about lasting?

00:30:37.378 --> 00:30:41.218
Michelle Fern: You know, because someone, people listening, they might say, wow, $600.

00:30:41.218 --> 00:30:44.258
Michelle Fern: And you're going to give me a good, honest answer for this.

00:30:44.258 --> 00:30:46.398
Michelle Fern: How durable is ChefPaw?

00:30:46.398 --> 00:30:57.358
Matt Terrill: The original two prototypes of the current machine that we're selling right now, I've been using it myself for two and a half years and trying everything I could to find a way to break it.

00:30:57.358 --> 00:31:01.158
Matt Terrill: I use it, I use it outdoor in my front yard when it rains.

00:31:04.018 --> 00:31:06.778
Matt Terrill: I do all kinds of things to get them to break.

00:31:06.778 --> 00:31:07.758
Matt Terrill: They haven't.

00:31:07.758 --> 00:31:10.758
Matt Terrill: We have a two year warranty on the machine.

00:31:10.758 --> 00:31:17.078
Matt Terrill: And in another year from now, if things keep going on this track, we'll probably extend it out to a three year warranty.

00:31:17.078 --> 00:31:25.738
Matt Terrill: But I'm very, very confident that a two year warranty is going to make plenty of sense for us.

00:31:25.738 --> 00:31:30.378
Matt Terrill: And we're keeping our return rate and our warranty rate under under 1%.

00:31:31.338 --> 00:31:34.358
Matt Terrill: So yeah, it's really it's really phenomenal.

00:31:34.358 --> 00:31:37.238
Michelle Fern: So is that available on your website or on the app?

00:31:37.238 --> 00:31:39.618
Matt Terrill: There's information available on that on the website.

00:31:39.618 --> 00:31:45.898
Matt Terrill: And in the app, when people select recipes, they can choose between our 40 different suggested recipes.

00:31:45.898 --> 00:31:50.958
Matt Terrill: They can customize those recipes themselves in any way that they want.

00:31:50.958 --> 00:31:53.438
Matt Terrill: And then there's community inspired recipes.

00:31:53.438 --> 00:32:01.398
Matt Terrill: So anyone who makes their own recipe in our app or customizes one of our recipes in the app, they have the ability to share it with the community.

00:32:01.398 --> 00:32:03.518
Matt Terrill: And then it goes into community inspired recipes.

00:32:03.518 --> 00:32:09.058
Matt Terrill: And then the fourth option is custom veterinary created recipes.

00:32:09.058 --> 00:32:20.678
Matt Terrill: So you can, those people, if you select that, you can reach out to our nutritionist and have a recipe made specifically just for your pets conditions.

00:32:20.678 --> 00:32:22.018
Michelle Fern: That's fantastic.

00:32:22.018 --> 00:32:23.478
Michelle Fern: Where can people buy ChefPaw?

00:32:24.078 --> 00:32:25.358
Matt Terrill: chefpaw.com.

00:32:25.358 --> 00:32:30.398
Matt Terrill: If you Google dog food maker, we will come up at the top there because there's nothing else like it.

00:32:30.398 --> 00:32:32.078
Matt Terrill: But chefpaw.com is the best way.

00:32:32.078 --> 00:32:32.878
Michelle Fern: It's incredible.

00:32:32.878 --> 00:32:36.218
Michelle Fern: I know I'm more of a baker than a cook and it was easy.

00:32:36.218 --> 00:32:38.058
Michelle Fern: So easy to use.

00:32:38.058 --> 00:32:41.338
Michelle Fern: Matt, I want to thank you so much for coming on Best Bets for Pets.

00:32:41.338 --> 00:32:43.918
Michelle Fern: I wish you amazing success with ChefPaw.

00:32:43.918 --> 00:32:44.598
Matt Terrill: Thank you so much.

00:32:44.598 --> 00:32:45.638
Matt Terrill: It was great being here.

00:32:45.638 --> 00:32:46.398
Matt Terrill: Great talking to you.

00:32:46.398 --> 00:32:47.758
Michelle Fern: Great talking to you too.

00:32:47.758 --> 00:32:50.118
Michelle Fern: Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed the show.

00:32:50.118 --> 00:32:52.078
Michelle Fern: Please be sure to check out chefpaw.com.

00:32:52.918 --> 00:33:00.378
Michelle Fern: This is phenomenal if you feed your dog fresh food, if you feed your dog, which of course all of you do, right?

00:33:00.378 --> 00:33:01.618
Michelle Fern: So check this out.

00:33:01.618 --> 00:33:03.438
Michelle Fern: This is a great product.

00:33:03.438 --> 00:33:10.638
Michelle Fern: Yes, the cost upfront is a little high, but it is well worth it and very cost effective.

00:33:10.638 --> 00:33:15.458
Michelle Fern: So chefpaw.com, thanks to my guest, Matt, for coming on Best Bets for Pets.

00:33:15.458 --> 00:33:19.018
Michelle Fern: And thanks to my testers, Charlie and Tilly.

00:33:19.478 --> 00:33:22.658
Michelle Fern: They had a great time eating what I created.

00:33:22.658 --> 00:33:23.958
Michelle Fern: And I'm not a good cook.

00:33:24.118 --> 00:33:25.358
Michelle Fern: I'm okay.

00:33:25.358 --> 00:33:27.538
Michelle Fern: But it was so simple to make.

00:33:27.538 --> 00:33:30.058
Michelle Fern: So I had a great time.

00:33:30.058 --> 00:33:32.358
Michelle Fern: So check it out, chefpaw.com.

00:33:32.358 --> 00:33:34.378
Michelle Fern: So thanks again to my testers.

00:33:34.378 --> 00:33:39.378
Michelle Fern: Thanks to my feline crew, Dennis, Molly and Charlotte.

00:33:39.378 --> 00:33:44.738
Michelle Fern: I will be testing some cat recipes at some point that you guys will get to try out.

00:33:44.738 --> 00:33:47.398
Michelle Fern: Thanks to everyone listening to Best Bets for Pets.

00:33:47.678 --> 00:33:49.618
Michelle Fern: I really appreciate your time.

00:33:49.618 --> 00:33:55.498
Michelle Fern: And thanks to my producer, Mark Winter, for working his magic and making me and my guest sound amazing.

00:33:55.498 --> 00:33:57.358
Michelle Fern: Now remember, keep listening.

00:33:57.358 --> 00:34:01.098
Michelle Fern: You never know what we're going to have next on Best Bets for Pets.

00:34:01.098 --> 00:34:07.078
Announcer: Let's talk pets, every week, on demand, only on petliferadio.com.

 

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