Healers PetCare was recently featured in an article in the January 2019 edition of Pet Insight Magazine! Take a look at page 26 to see the story, or read the full text below.
This copy originally appeared on page 26 of the January 2019 edition of Pet Insight Magazine.
First Take – Health & Wellness
Within the health & wellness space, retailers and manufacturers are working with pet parents when there’s something already wrong with their pet, a challenge most categories are not faced with. To overcome this hurdled, suppliers are intent on proving their credibility and earning retailers and consumers’ trust. To achieve this, suppliers are ceaselessly focused on the inclusion of active ingredients and ensuring pets receive therapeutic levels of them in their products.
Manufacturers’ willingness to educate the industry on their products and how they are designed to help pets is demonstrating to the industry there are natural yet effective options available. Some companies are partnering with veterinarians to provide options that pet owners can feel even more comfortable with giving their pets.
“Herbsmith will continue to stay at the forefront of solid scientific studies, exploring how we can best use modern science to supplement a pet’s diet, so we can provide them everything they need,” said Herbsmith’s Chris Bessent. “One area of study that I’m interested in is the consequence of glyphosate in our pet’s diet,” Bessent said. “Research from Fall of 2018 documents that almost all pet food has some glyphosate in it. So, what effect does that have on an animal’s body? On their microbiome and on a leaky gut? What effect does it have on the brain and leaky blood brain barrier? Once we know more, then it becomes about what supplements we can make to mitigate the toxic effects of glyphosate,” she said. “From what we know already, we can protect the microbiome with Microflora and shield the liver with Herbsmith’s organic ground Milk Thistle, but there’s even more we can do. That may mean a few new offerings in 2019,” she added.
Healers Petcare is joining forces with veterinarian Dr. Eric Witherspoon, who has developed products for his line Healing Tree. “This is what sets us apart, having formulas that are veterinarian developed,” said Terri Entler with Healers Petcare. “We’re merging our product lines which will be our big announcement coming up,” Entler said. “Even though the Healing Tree line is mew to us, they have been in the industry for more than a year and have been well received. We have a lot of data supporting how much they help pets,” she added.
“We’re really excited about working with this local veterinarian and developing more products through him and his chemist,” Entler said. “Additionally other than the veterinarian, his daughters have taken over, so we’re now a women-owned company. We’re really excited about the upcoming year,” she said.
“The biggest thing is we have some technology coming from the veterinary world. We’ve been working with a pharmaceutical company on the dental side,” said Chuck Latham with H&C Animal Health. “Some natural products that do some really interesting things with tartar build up and plaque removal are very interesting,” Latham said. “Those are two of the things we were working with. It’s hard—nobody wants to brush their dog’s teeth—it’s a pain in the butt and it’s hard to do. We think we have some ways to make it easier, simpler, using some technology that makes it easier for the consumer,” he said.
“In 2019, it would be great if there were more high-quality, therapeutic level supplements on the market,” Bessent said. “High-quality supplements must have therapeutic levels of active ingredients in order for them to make the difference they should,” she said. “Without enough of the active ingredients, you won’t see the intended effect on the pet. When that happens the pet owner believes that all supplements don’t really work. If we all provide really good products, it raises the whole category which lends credibility to us and really benefits the animals, which is our goal.”
“There is an opportunity for pet health and wellness to take a major cue from what is happening in human wellness around considering the whole sense of wellbeing,” said Derek Archambault with VetriScience. “There is research that backs the idea of pets feeling stress when their pet parents are stressed, and we know that behavior is a major issue with pet owners,” Archambault said. “From behavior supplements to occupying toys to healthy snacks, health and wellness isn’t just a matter of the right food, but a lifestyle for the pet, just like for people.”
“We constantly get feedback from our customers: what’s working, what’s not working,” Entler said. “We’re improving our various designs this year based on customer feedback,” she said. “We subsequently made the decision to go into all natural supplements as well as the ointments and the CBD lines based off of customer feedback. We rely on what our customers are asking for and what they need. Additionally, we also focus on senior pets because most of our products really help the older generation of pets.”
“A lot of our customers’ pets have arthritis, get arthritis just like humans,” Entler added. “So most of our solutions have significantly helped dogs that have those kind of issues; have difficulty walking on slippery surfaces as they get older, there’s a lot of different types of neurological conditions that we focus on to help those pets,” she said. “I’ve had customers call me and say they didn’t have to put their dog down because of our products. They were able to expend the life of their dog because they could walk better with using our medical boots and those kinds of things. That’s the kind of feedback that’s just awesome when I hear that.”
“Today it’s such a unique world,” Latham said. “At one time, your feedback was mainly through your retailers and distributor sales people. And today your feedback is consumer feedback which is probably the best,” he said.
