Transcript:

Hi everyone, I’m Anne Carlson, the founder and CEO of Jiminy’s. At Jiminy’s we make sustainable dog treats (and soon dog food).

What makes them sustainable? We substitute traditional protein, like cows & chicken) with cricket protein!

I’m going to tell you a bit more about the product in a sec, but first let’s talk about why we did this.

There are over 89 million dogs in the US who consume more than 32 billion pounds of protein a year.

Our dogs are active, they’re athletes and as such they need high quality protein to stay healthy.

BUT 32 billion pounds of protein is an enormous amount – and the traditional source for this protein is just not sustainable.

So, at Jiminy’s, we replace traditional animal protein with cricket protein. It’s delicious, nutritious, sustainable, humane and gut friendly! Let’s unpack that.

Cricket protein is sustainable. It uses exponentially less land, water and emits far fewer greenhouse gases.

In fact, if you take this one bag of our treats and compare it to the same size bag of traditional treats, we save 220 gallons of water! WITH THIS ONE BAG.

It’s also nutritious. It’s a complete protein with all of the essential amino acids. But it also has fiber, iron, vitamin B2 & 12 and the list goes on and on. It really is a superfood!!

Even though we know the cricket protein contains all of these great nutrients, there was still a question as to whether the dogs could digest the protein. We decided to answer that question. Jiminy’s partnered with Iowa State to take a deep dive into digestibility and the great news is that the cricket protein scored as high as chicken and beef. It’s a high quality, digestible protein source.

Since we were already doing this intensive study with the dogs, we decided to add in a few steps to look at the impact of the fiber in the cricket protein powder AND we got more good news. That fiber feeds the good bacteria in the dog’s gut –or in other words – it’s pre-biotic!

It’s Delicious! This was really important – one of the first questions I had was “will dogs like this?” so I ordered some crickets and gave them to my dogs. Well, the drool came fast, they loved it. We combine the cricket protein powder with other purposeful ingredients to make a delicious treat! (I know, I’ve eaten my fair share of them) And you can see from this picture, beside my own dogs – now all of the dogs on the beach get in line for treats!

So, we know the dogs like it, and good news again – their owners do too! We’ve got a great following on social media with over 40K fans! In fact, all of these images came from influencers who are super fans of the product! We’re also starting to get press outside of pet – BuzzFeed just published an article where we were called a “life-changing” product that helps combat climate change.

We’ve thought a lot about where consumers will find Jiminy’s. We focused initially on Independent Pet Specialty Stores and we’re now in over 400 stores across the US. We’re also selling on our own website and Amazon.

Jiminy’s resonates with Millennials and Millennials have become the biggest pet owning cohort – they prefer to shop online so the online channel is definitely important for us!

Building a company like Jiminy’s is a journey. We launched with dog biscuits and recently introduced a soft and chewy training treat. We’re already working on Dog Food and plan to release it this summer.

I’ve worked in this industry for over 25 years.

I love working with the dogs and I think pets are the best category within Consumer Packaged Goods.

It’s been super interesting as well. One of the things I’ve seen during that time is the emergence of several successful platforms in pet – Science, Natural, LID, Grain Free. As I think about the future, I believe that it is time for a change in the conversation and a new platform to emerge

Nutrition and taste are still key, however humane and sustainable now need to be part of the solution. I believe that this new platform will be a “better world” (it needs to be) AND, we’re building a Brand that will anchor that new category.

We’d love to have you join us on this journey.

You can feel good about this product. Pet parents love it, the dog’s love it, and it’s good for the earth – wagging tails all around!!!!

Thank you very much.