Natural Farm’s story begins with a Boxer named Linda. In 2013 she was diagnosed with heart disease, and on top of that had skin allergies and stomach problems. Her health meant many pet food and treat ingredients were out of the question — and her owner Marcus Maximo was having trouble finding anything that did fit the bill.
“It was hard to find something that she could eat and not have a bad reaction to it,” says Maximo. “I had some friends of friends in Brazil who manufactured natural chews, and they put me in contact [with the manufacturers]. And I thought, what if I do my own product, something that I can make sure works, make sure that it’s clean, whatever ingredient I say that it is, it really is? So, I met these guys in Brazil, I went to the factory to see how the products were being made and they basically did dried, natural chews. And I was like, oh yeah, everything they’re showing me is for real, nothing added to the products. And that’s pretty much it. I came back [from the trip] and we partnered.”
Natural Farm takes pride in offering chews that will keep every type of dog busy, no matter the size or chewing affinity of the animal. | Courtesy Natural Farm
And so, in 2018, Natural Farm was born.
Beginnings and exploring the alternatives
The company started with the basics that the facility in Brazil was already producing for other companies: Natural body parts such as bully sticks, trachea and gullet. The all-natural component was a must, and Maximo soon convinced the manufacturers to work exclusively with Natural Farm.
The company’s original product offerings remain some of its most popular: Natural, single-ingredient animal parts dogs love to chew on, including trachea, bully sticks and gullet. | Courtesy Natural Farm
“I kind of ended up helping them to have their own brand,” he says. “And so instead of selling to others, [they would] just sell through Natural Farm and we could absorb all production ourselves.”
That’s exactly what happened, and one of the significant benefits of manufacturing things yourself, says Maximo, is that you can bring a lot of new products to the market fairy easily. This led to Natural Farm looking for ways to stand out in a very well-established market segment.
“What we’ve been doing is bringing a lot of alternatives to traditional chews that are expensive, like bully sticks,” Maximo says. “They’re expensive, and sometimes they get very expensive, and sometimes they’re hard to find and things like that, but they are the most popular. People still look a lot for bully sticks. So we were like, we need to create a lot of alternatives.”
In response, Natural Farm created chews with beef collagen, beef cheek, etc. that are in the same shape as bully sticks.
“They last about the same amount of time or more, but they are cheaper,” says Maximo. “And it’s still a natural, single ingredient.”
The company also took a look at the yak cheese market.
“We know yak cheese is very popular right now,” he says. “And we searched for it, and we buy it and sell it because people still look for it. But we also created our own version of yak cheese from cow milk.”
One of the things the company is particularly proud of are its new power chews: two-in-one chews featuring a piece of beef cheek wrapped in either esophagus, pizzle or fish skin.
Power chews are two-in-one chews that combine two proteins for double the taste, texture and protein. | Courtesy Natural Farm
Coming up with alternative products seems to be a strength of Natural Farm.
For example, “stuffed bones are still very popular, but they splint,” says Maximo. “It’s really hard to predict how they will behave with dogs. So we took cow cheek, and we stuffed it with the same thing that we do for bones, and you have a similar product. It’s not as hard as a bone, but it still gives a little [resistance] for the dog. But they have fun with what’s inside, and then they chew the outside. Everything’s highly digestible and it doesn’t splint so it’s safer than bones. So this is our alternate product. This is why we try to create: We see problems and figure out how we can create something new to fix them. People were really kind of not looking for anything because they had no options. And now with Natural Farm, we have a lot of stuff out there as an alternative.”
An ecommerce start and retail challenges
Most of Natural Farms’ sales come from their online platforms, because that’s how the company started.
Among Natural Farm’s many offerings are dental treats, which make use of collagen and the all-natural ingredients the company is known for. | Courtesy Natural Farm
“We hope we can level up in a few years, but online is still pretty strong,” says Maximo. “Especially after COVID. A lot of people who we met never shopped online before. With COVID they just had no other options, and then they didn’t go back to a physical store.”
The company has since started expanding into physical retail and sees that space as its current biggest challenge.
“Just to bring products through distributors and grow sales, because there’s a lot of competition out there,” says Maximo. “It’s a harder job than selling online, where the brand is well known. It takes a lot more effort to work with distributors and small retailers than online, of course. So that’s our biggest challenge. Just making people replace other brands for Natural Farm.”
Maximo says Natural Farm has huge plans for expanding through retailers, but that doesn’t mean the company is abandoning the ecommerce space.
“Of course, we have a lot more products to come that we’re launching on Amazon and our website,” he says. “[We’re] working on new programs for the shopping experience, a subscription base for our customers on our website, because that is really hard to navigate. I have customers that shop on naturalfarmpet.com, and we also have the Amazon customers. We want to bring them to our website because we can provide more information and better product deals. So we are working on that.
“We’re expecting a lot of growth on both ends, but especially here on the retailer side because we have a lot of new distributors and it takes a little bit of time,” he says. “We’re working on a lot of new products. In 2025 we’ll have duck foot, dry food, freeze-dried, air-dried, so again, stepping out into a whole new world. I think the more we can offer to customers in terms of experience and just, I think it’s better for the customer and for ourselves, right? They buy our treats, why not provide a very good quality food as well?”
Social involvement from the very beginning
Natural Farm has been involved in engaging and supporting the global community from the start, as it’s something Maximo feels very passionately about.
“When I started the brand, something that I had in mind was I didn’t want to be just another brand,” he says. “And I knew competitors, and I knew they were not doing anything other than profit for themselves. And I learned that no matter how big you are or small you are, it’s important to start some social action. So that’s what I’ve been doing since 2018. We have a department that’s dedicated to programs that support nonprofits.
“Right now, we’re working with a nonprofit called Charity Water,” says Maximo. “I read a book about this guy (Scott Harrison). He was like a playboy in New York (and a nightclub promoter) who was doing social media, all that stuff. He was tired of that, and he went on a cruise to Africa to be a photographer, and he saw a lot of bad things. He saw kids drinking water from the ground like animals and was really impacted by that.”
Charity Water, according to its website, works with carefully chosen local partner organizations to bring clean water to remote areas with the greatest needs and most vulnerable populations. The charity helps fund water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programs for rural communities around the world, and is committed to monitoring, evaluating and maintenance to ensure that the programs operate sustainably for years to come.
“What we do is support those projects,” says Maximo. “We’re supporting one now that is in a community with 400 children. There’s hygiene education plus building the well, and they use local farmers to build it. Helping children and pets, this is in our core.”
Ensuring Natural Farm stands out
With new products and new product markets on the horizon, Natural Farms is continuing to do the work to make sure it can stand out wherever it does business.
“It’s a crazy market,” Maximo says of the food space. “It’s huge, much bigger [than chews and bones], much more competition. So right now, honestly, it’s like okay, what could we bring to the table that is really different and that would make a difference? That’s where we are right now, trying to pick if it’s only kibble, or should we have three lines, things like that. And studying the market and benchmarking. Just bringing food to have it doesn’t make any sense to me. You’ll get lost in the shuffle.”
Fast Facts
Headquarters: Forest Park, Georgia, USA
Officers: Marcus Maximo, founder and CEO
Brands: Natural Farm
Website/Social Media: www.naturalfarmpet.com; @naturalfarmpet of Facebook and Instagram
Notable: As a way to reduce its carbon footprint, the company plants a tree with every online purchase in partnership with tree-planting charity One Tree Planted.