All About Us
“Pets Go Raw” is manufactured in Cranbrook, B.C. by Top Hand Supplies Ltd. We (Stu and Sherin Laurie) started the business by making food for our Shiba Inu dogs. A handler fed it to one of our dogs that she was showing. We were so impressed by his coat and condition that we decided to change to the frozen, raw food. We started out by feeding another brand, but were not really happy with it. So we started out researching the product and experimenting in our home near Skookumchuck.
We wanted a product that we felt confident to be feeding both our mature dogs and the young puppies on weaning. When we had settled on a recipe, we bought a small grinder and started bagging by hand.
As friends and acquaintances saw our dogs, they wanted to change their diet as well, so we started producing in our kitchen evenings and weekends. This quickly got to be too much. We decided to expand. We incorporated the company and sold shares to raise working capital. We leased a building in Cranbrook in February of 2004. We have since purchased this building. At first, we thought that we would rent out half the space as we could not imagine ever using it all. Within six months we had grown to the size where we needed all the building space. Since then we have expanded the building by adding two more large walk-in freezers, a packing room and a loading dock. We are constantly looking for more room – so more expansion is in the not too far distant future.
When we moved “into town” we started by grinding the product in a fairly large grinder and then had a mixer-grinder to totally mix the product. This beat the hand mixing for sure. We packaged in bread loaf tins – putting the product in by hand and freezing. Then the pans were emptied and the frozen loaves put into bags. This was extremely labour intensive and not very satisfactory.
Next we obtained a water-hydraulic sausage stuffer that we loaded by hand and tied the sausages by hand. We stuffed large diameter sausages, froze them and then cut them to approximate weight. This worked reasonably well, but it was hard to produce sausages that were even in diameter and the saw had to be constantly adjusted to cut patties to size. This style of product has a limited storage life as it is open to the air.
At this point, we purchased a bull-cutter, which is somewhat like a huge mixer with very sharp cutting blades. This machine replaced the mixer-grinder and made for a more uniform product. We also went to a sausage stuffer that was semi-automatic. It did work somewhat better, but the sausages were still inconsistent, were hand tied and had to be cut with a saw. It was also subject to “freezer-burn”.
We now have state-of-the-art machinery – a new grinder, the bull-cutter, an automatic sausage stuffer that regulates weight to the hundredth of an ounce and a semi-automatic clipper that staples the sausages. With this process, the product has a great storage life as it is sealed completely.
We are committed to producing a top quality product for a reasonable price.
When you are in Cranbrook, B.C. come and visit us, tour our plant and see how our product is made. We are very proud of our staff and facilities and love to show them off.
Take care….. keep your pets healthy and happy with a GREAT FOOD
Stu & Sherin
