Exploring Life & Business with Katie Smith of NewRoad Foods

Today we’d like to introduce you to Katie Smith.

Hi Katie, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
NewRoad Foods was born out of what my Dad, Greg, and I call “the big idea.” When we started NewRoad together in 2014, our mission was to develop the industry’s first human-grade, freshly baked pet food. Our ultimate vision is to build a network of baking facilities where we make fresh, clean pet foods and invite our customers in to see and even participate in the process; a craft brewery for pet food, if you will. Greg (who I call Greg at work and Dad at family functions) has been in the pet food industry for a long time – he’d be unhappy with me if I revealed exactly how long but certainly before I was born. He is an R&D expert and founded a separate very successful business before NewRoad developing pet foods for international markets.

While we had his expertise to rely on, we had to start from scratch with nearly every part of the business. A human-grade supply chain for pet foods didn’t exist – so we built one. We didn’t want to use traditional extruders that use pressure and heat to cook foods in a matter of seconds – so we developed a cold-form process using Italian pasta makers. And we didn’t want to preserve our foods so they could travel through long-chain distribution systems – so we deliver them directly to our customers. While some pet foods could have been made up to two years before they arrive at your door, ours arrived within days. Developing these systems took years. Our cold-form process started with me rolling, weighing and cutting tiny pieces of dough by hand before baking them in my oven at home. This evolved to forming ropes of dough with a KitchenAid pasta attachment and cutting them in exact increments.

Finally, we bought “Luigi”—our affectionately named commercial pasta-maker. Our production ramped up, and he gained a sibling machine, “Mario” in 2019. We ended up questioning nearly every assumption about how pet food has been made and landed on something truly different – the industry’s first fresh baked food made entirely with human-grade ingredients. Like every small business this year, we’ve made difficult decisions and have scaled our product-line in order to get super lean and focus on survival. And while circumstances and perhaps our projected timeline has changed, our mission and vision for the brand are as solid as they were when we started.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
While I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity (and privilege, really) of starting NewRoad, there have been struggles – both personally and professionally – that are likely common to many entrepreneurs. Since starting NewRoad I got married and now have two kids of my own – Lincoln, 5, and Claire, 3. Being a working mom can sometimes feel impossible. Entrepreneurship and my kids fill my life with purpose and joy – I don’t want to exist in a world without either. But they also keep me up at night and, on bad days I can’t help but think about how peaceful an existence would be without them. Uninteresting for sure, but peaceful! A “family business” in and of itself is a challenge. My Dad and I are similar and are often in alignment on bigger issues. But when we’re not…it’s pretty difficult. Our approaches are different; we’ve had major disagreements at work, and they tend to take an emotional toll when your co-founder is also your father. We’ve had to reset ground rules a few times for the health of both our business and our own relationship.

That being said, there are major advantages as well. If it’s getting close to pick up time at school and my husband and I are still working, Greg will happily shift into Grandpa mode and come to the rescue. And while we’ve always been friends, there is definitely a different bond you get to enjoy with someone who is in the entrepreneurial trenches with you. I’m lucky that someone is my Dad. And most significantly for the business, we had to drastically scale back our team and the scope of our plans in 2020. Our initial plan for this year was growth, which required capital. Given the economic environment, we decided instead to focus on efficiency, cash preservation and survival. This meant massive changes to the team, our products and our sales channels. What’s come out of this, hopefully, is a different kind of growth that in the long run is perhaps more sustainable.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
At NewRoad, we are pioneers when it comes to standards in the pet food industry. We use human-grade ingredients and stamp every bag with a “Baked On” date because we believe pets deserve foods that are just as safe and fresh as the foods we eat. The product and process choices we’ve made are limiting – we can’t make our foods with more efficient co-packers, we won’t sell through traditional distribution channels because we won’t compromise on shelf life, etc. But this year we’ve learned to leverage what we can do; we can safely ship our foods alongside human food so we’re partnering with local meal kit brands; we can work with distributors who deliver local produce to customers’ doors. And as of this month, we’ve launched with Uber Eats, Postmates, Grubhub and Doordash via CloudKitchens. Now we can offer pet parents the option to have fresh food for their pups be delivered to their door in 30 minutes or less. For us, 2020 is about survival – if we are vigilant about new opportunities, I’m confident 2021 will be about growth and proliferation.

Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
Our Production Manager, Luis, has helped our team through it all: the lean times in the beginning, the scaling of production, and helping to build a team to meet demand when we quickly grew. This year, he’s continued to remain flexible while making difficult adjustments like scaling back down to part-time. He is unwavering in his belief in the value and potential of NewRoad and thoughtfully understands it the way a founder does. He and his family have become friends, and I can’t wait for him to share in our success in the future. I’m super grateful for the support of my husband, Charlie, who has a full-time job in law enforcement and washes windows, cleans gutters and any other smattering of other odd jobs on the side to support our family so that I can continue to dedicate everything to NewRoad.

And finally, our customers are perhaps our biggest cheerleaders. They are extremely loyal and I’ve gotten to know many of them and their dogs personally. It was an extremely difficult when we temporarily shut production down in March due to uncertainties about COVID. More than a few offered to keep paying us for their monthly deliveries and forego their shipments until we were back up and running. We couldn’t oblige, obviously, but it was incredibly gracious and humbling. That kind of support and belief in our mission makes what we do all the more meaningful and full of purpose.

Pricing:

• USDA-Certified Chicken w/ Organic Coconut Oil Protein Chips: $9.99
• Holiday Protein Chips For Dogs: Chicken w/ Cranberry & Sage: $7.50
• Holiday Protein Chips For Cats: Chicken w/ Cranberry & Sage: $7.50
• Wild-Caught Whitefish w/ Organic Coconut Oil: $9.99

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: https://newroadfoods.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newroadfoods/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/newroadfoods