Wednesday Week 8 Meeting - FINAL PIVOT

Due to feedback received after our Week 8 pitch, we are now pivoting to manufacturing our own dehydrated cat food for purchase in self-serve bulk bins at organic grocery stores, rather than using frozen pet food pellets and partnering with an already established pet food manufacturer.
The Bones Of Our Idea


Top concern from pet owners:
Pet is fussy and prefers having different flavours

Owners solution:
Single serve cans and sachets
Why? Ensures freshness with each meal, can purchase different flavours

Pet type chosen (due to waste produced and popularity in NZ): Cats

Cat facts:
Most popular companion animal in New Zealand
Average number of cats per household = 1.8
Feed 2-3 times a day – At least one wet meal
Fussy eaters, prefer meat fresh and flavour variety

Problem identified:
Single serve pet food packaging is wasteful

Our aim:
Alternative packaging/purchasing method of wet cat food (Dry cat food already comes in bulk bags, less of a concern to keeping freshness)

Point of difference (What is our selling point?):
Self-serve
Minimal packaging
Targeted at a found problem – what people want

Initial design criteria:
Minimise single serve packaging waste
Meet pet industry food standards
Quality food
Package sanitation
Accessible and convenient for customer
Fully eco-friendly/sustainable story
Organic?
Nutritional/Great for your pet

Explored avenues: 
Deposit – Return system for glass jars
Delivery service (Milk bottle system)
Self-serve frozen from bulk bins (Streets model)
Self-serve dehydrated from bulk bins

Tensions found:

What compromises will we need to make?


Minimal packaging
Single serves to ensure freshness







Solution:
Self-serve dehydrated pet food

Pros
- Space saving – less room needed in transport and on shelf
- Light weight – lower transport cost
- Holds the nutrition
- Less packaging for higher volume of pet food

Cons
- Extra human effort and prep for cat’s meat
- Expensive
- Less common – people may be hesitant

Moving forward:
Convince customers that dehydrated cat food is as good, if not better, than current canned wet food
Rally an interested customer base
Brand and market our product really well – it is unknown and niche