Biscuit baker creates right bite to delight dogs everywhere

When Noreen Naidus began making organic dog biscuits for sale in 2004, business was a little slow.

Her company, Alaska's Bakery, was small at first, selling a few bags a week mostly through the office of a local holistic veterinarian. Sales in the first year were strictly through word-of-mouth, and the company, named after Naidus' miniature American Eskimo dog, sold just $2,000 in biscuits in 2004.

Alaska's Bakery has enjoyed a whirlwind of activity since September, though, with an appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," a deal to sell biscuits through local Whole Foods Market and Wild Oats stores and an agreement to make biscuits for a private label on the East Coast. She's negotiating with a co-packer to boost production capacity from 4,000 biscuits a week to as many as 20,000 pounds of biscuits a day, and 37 Whole Foods stores in the West are scheduled to begin selling Alaska's Bakery products in the next one to two months. Naidus is projecting about $125,000 in sales in 2008.

Naidus is also a professional singer who still performs local shows at the Santa Fe and Gordon Biersch.

Question: What prompted you to start Alaska's Bakery?

Answer: Alaska did. I wanted him to live a very long life, so I started researching and found out organic and raw were the best ways to feed an animal. I love to bake cookies and cakes and make gourmet meals, so I thought, Why not start making some biscuits and see what happens? I formulated a couple of recipes and Alaska went crazy for them.

Of course, one batch would make too many biscuits for Alaska, so I started giving samples to neighbors, or to people with dogs at the park. I wanted to turn a passion for cooking and baking into a business making healthy food for dogs, and I wanted to make it easier for other people to find healthy treats for animals.

Question: Talk about the process of opening a pet-food manufacturing business. How complicated was it?

Answer: The first thing I had to do was call the health department and find out what legal permits or documents I needed. Then I called the city to ask about licenses. I checked with a prominent local holistic veterinarian on all the ingredients I wanted to use, and I asked her for an endorsement.

Then I had to think about packaging and how the biscuits would stay fresh, so I decided to vacuum-seal them. I bought the bags and a vacuum-seal machine, but the biscuits would break during sealing, so I had to change to resealable bags. I also had to test biscuits for shelf life. Then as things progressed, I knew I would need a crude analysis. So I sent samples to a lab in the Midwest that does crude analysis. I needed liability insurance.

I needed pricing. I had to educate myself in exactly what it cost to make the biscuits and what would be a fair profit for me and what would be a fair price for the consumer, as well as try to figure out a wholesale price where the retailer would make their margin. I knew I would also need UPC codes to be in supermarkets, where I could compete with the big guys. I got my codes from the Uniform Code Council. Getting the codes also meant I had to get software for printing the bar codes on my package labels.

And I promoted the business. Wherever I was -- Starbucks, dog parks, the supermarket, the mall, even singing performances -- it didn't matter. I told everybody about it and gave them samples and business cards.

Question: How long did it take you from the time you decided to open a business to find distribution in local grocery stores?

Answer: I decided to launch the business in 2004, but I continued to work in music and did odd day jobs to pay my bills and put gas in my car. At the end of 2006, I realized that if I continued working that way, my business would stay small, so I quit the day jobs to do this full time.

The turning point was in September, when I did my first trade show, SuperZoo at Mandalay Bay. Jay Leno had producers there looking for companies to have on "The Tonight Show" during an opening segment. Out of hundreds of companies there, my company was one of about five selected to be on. Our show aired in October.

Question: How were you chosen for the show?

Answer: Being in the entertainment business, I knew I had to think of what I could do that would be different from these hundreds of other people there. So I decided I would play it straight, and I had my best friend stand behind me while I talked. I basically said, "This is me, this is who I am, this is what I do," and while I was talking, I had my friend take a bag of biscuits and, without saying a word, totally straight-faced, he opened it, took a biscuit out and started eating it. (To see the "Tonight Show" clip, go to www.alaskasbakery.com.)

September was also when local Whole Foods stores started stocking our biscuits on their shelves.

Question: How did you get the deal with Whole Foods?

Answer: I've shopped at Whole Foods for years. When I'd go, I'd pass out samples to customers and stock people. The stock people told me I should talk to the grocery manager, because they have local vendors. So I called the grocery manager in June and introduced myself over the phone. I told him I was a local vendor, and that my biscuits were the best he'd find anywhere. He agreed to meet with me.

At the meeting, I brought a couple of bags of competitors' biscuits I'd bought off the shelf. I had him smell mine and theirs, and I showed him the ingredients on both. He fell in love with the smell of my peanut-butter biscuits, and said he felt like eating one. I told him he could, because they were made from human ingredients I'd bought at Whole Foods. So he tried one, said it wasn't bad, and took another to put in his pocket. He called me in September, on the last day of SuperZoo, to tell me I was approved to sell at the store and to place his first order.

Question: What advice would you give other entrepreneurs who want to launch a new product?

Answer: You have to love what you're doing. This doesn't even feel like work for me and I'm working harder than I ever have in my life. Get prepared with everything you think you need and just go for it. You can be scared. Do it anyway. Talk to store managers, talk to other people in business, read the paper, read trade magazines and ask lots of questions. You need determination and perseverance.

Question: What was your best source for research?

Answer: There was no best source. I did it all. I went to the library. I bought books, I read magazines, I asked my veterinarian questions. I'm not afraid to ask questions. I learn from other people's failures and successes. I seek out people who are wiser than I am to find out what I should do. I have no ego. All I want to do is learn, and I believe there is enough success and money for everybody.

Question: What are your future plans for growth?

Answer: I'd like to be in Whole Foods stores nationally, and I'd love to be in all the supermarkets and pet stores. As many places as there are to reach the dogs, that's where I want to be.

Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com or (702) 380-4512.