Talk about silver linings that came out of the pandemic: Two years into launching Viva, premium raw food for pets, Zach Ao and Jenn Wu have built strong business partnerships, are shipping upwards of 60,000 pounds of pet food each month, and have 2022 revenue of $3 million.
It all started with second guessing the norms in their lives: Both Ao and Wu felt unfulfilled in the product management positions they held at Triangle tech companies. Work from home exacerbated those frustrations and focused them on a business concept that would solve a niche need, one they had struggled with in their personal lives. Even before Covid, they were spending a lot of time, energy and money preparing nutritious homemade food for their beloved Karoo, a fast-growing Rhodesian Ridgeback they adopted soon after college.
“Karoo is our baby and we’ve been making food for her ever since we brought her home,” Wu said. “It was hard to find good options in commercially prepared pet food, which was supposed to be fresh and higher quality but you couldn’t tell what ingredients [were used]. We knew other pet parents wanted food like ours, so we decided to take a shot at it.”
“Four or five years ago the raw/fresh portion of the pet food market was probably less than 1 percent; now I think it is closer to 5 percent and growing quickly,” Ao said.
The niche clearly exists, but to fill it the couple had to circumvent obstacles, including doing all of the intensely physical labor by themselves across their first six to nine months and finding ways to deal with sourcing challenges and supply chain disruptions.
“The other aspect that has been very difficult for us has been the formulation of our products,” Ao explains. “Our complete line for adult dogs is all balanced with 100 percent whole foods – [unlike] a bag of kibble, where you’ll see a lot of synthetic vitamins and minerals added to make it nutritionally complete.”
“We were shipping maybe a couple hundred pounds a month in the beginning, and now it’s more like 50,000 to 60,000 pounds a month,” Wu said.
The surge in volume has been facilitated by partnerships they established with a U.S. Department of Agriculture food manufacturer located in Burgaw and a third-party logistics company that manages Viva fulfillment from warehouses in Greensboro and Union City, California.
“Sourcing is a big piece for us, and the most important thing we look for is sourcing from small and medium-sized organizations that support smaller independent farmers. All of our sources are 100 percent certified humane and never use hormones or antibiotics,” Ao said. “Because we opt for smaller suppliers it may mean we need two suppliers of chicken or turkey instead of one, but it makes a huge difference for us in the quality of our products.”
The commitment to top-quality products does drive costs up, but Viva recently determined the cost of feeding their brand to an average 30-pound dog would run the pet owner $5 to $6 a day.
“It’s like a cup of coffee,” Wu quips. “We think about it in terms of investing in long-term health, maybe it means less vet visits. We’re confident we are at the best price for what the ingredients are doing, and, if you compare this to some of the gently cooked food brands that are popular, we are definitely more affordable.”
As for investing in Viva: not an option. The owners made the intentional decision to bootstrap the company and not seek investment from outside sources. “By working with our close business partners, we aren’t purchasing warehouses or a manufacturing facility and we have been profitable from day one,” Ao said.
Wu said: “And we’re profitable in the sense that the business makes enough money so we can continually invest into other projects we’re looking at down the road. Like, we’re planning to launch a subscription service in a couple of weeks – it really makes sense for our type of product and fresh pet food delivery."
