Super-Food for Dogs Makes Owners Sit Up and Take Notice

There was a time when a cup of kibble and a can of dog food were all that people thought a dog needed for a complete diet.

Although that’s often still the case, a growing contingent of pet lovers feels that Fido needs to get in on the trend of super-foods.

That desire has helped fuel the bottom line of Designing Health, a Valencia-based company started in 1992 by a veterinarian.

The company, founded in the Sylmar garage of Robert Collett with an initial investment of about $200,000, has grown to nearly $5 million a year in sales of nutritional supplements for people and animals.

The company’s first product, a powdered nutritional supplement for dogs called the Missing Link, has become so popular that it’s made Dog World magazine’s list of prominent products.

“Dog supplements are a growing field,” said Jason Stipp, associate editor of Dog World, “and so we’re doing a roundup of notable products for our December issue. We don’t do any scientific testing, but we basically take them out for a test run. The Missing Link has promising results.”

The results have included healthier skin and coat and a higher level of energy.

The idea for the product came about after Collett, who had been practicing veterinary medicine for nearly 23 years, began noticing that younger dogs were increasingly falling victim to the ailments of old age.

“I was seeing lots of problems with dogs suffering from diabetes, arthritis, skin diseases, autoimmune problems,” said Collett, company president. “Everything that ends in an -itis, which means inflammation.”

“He thought the problems might be connected to their diet,” said Bernard Collett, Robert’s brother and chief executive of Designing Health.

So the Colletts--Bernard has a doctorate in natural resource science--put their heads together with nutritionists and started devising a whole-food concentrate, one that is sparingly processed, which addresses things dogs need such as essential fatty acids, including the Omega 3 fatty acid.

“I had been doing a lot of reading because I, myself, was suffering from diabetes,” Robert Collett said. “And I got riveted on the essential fatty acids. I didn’t know they would help the body stop inflammation.”

In 1994, the company’s first year of sales, it sold a little under $300,000. But that figure, according to Bernard Collett, more than tripled the next year, to $980,000.

“But to keep it functioning in those early days, my brother had to invest several hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he said. “You just have to have that capital until you make it around the big curve.”

In the intervening years, the company went on to create nutritional supplements for cats, then horses and, most recently, birds. And pet-store shelves soon became full of other brands, as well.

“What we’ve started to realize over the years is that animals’ diets are pretty good. The general level of nutrition is certainly better than it was years ago,” notes Martin Glinsky, an animal nutritionist and supplement manufacturer who acts as a consultant for Petco, one of the stores that sells Missing Link. “So that while most of the time supplementation may or may not be needed, when an animal is under stress--perhaps they jog with their master, the family is moving, there’s a new baby or a new pet in the house--they might respond to supplementation.”

In 1996, Designing Health took its second big step--coming up with a formula for humans, marketed under the Master Nutrient brand.

“All of our ingredients are of the highest human food grade,” Bernard Collett said. “When people began to understand this, as they were buying the supplement for their dogs, we found out that they were taking the supplements themselves. That was the genesis for the Master Nutrient line.”

The all-vegetarian powdered supplement is processed in a patented cold-processing operation that keeps the ingredients from disintegrating from the ravages of light, heat or oxygen. The company is about to release its second line of human supplements, called the Omega Blast, which it is billing as a meal replacement product--something mixed in a glass of milk or water that is convenient and healthy. According to the company’s chief technical officer, Sonja Slavic, a nutritionist, it offers 1,200 mg of the essential fatty acid Omega 3 and 18 grams of soy. The flavors include chocolate, berry and vanilla nut.

“What we’ve been trying to do is carry the relatively rare and fragile Omega 3 acid in a food supplement,” Bernard Collett said. “It’s something people have to have.”

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Along the way, the company has grown from a spare office in Robert Collett’s veterinary clinic to an industrial park in Valencia. It’s currently housed in 20,000 square feet of space, in which its offices and manufacturing plant are both located--and kept at a constant 72 degrees. Because of the perishability factor of both the human and animal supplements, the company guarantees only a 15-month shelf life. Once the packaging is opened, it needs refrigeration and must be used within 90 days.

“I’m 6 feet tall and weigh 175 pounds,” said Collett, 61. “And I take three to four tablespoons a day. What we’d like to see people get up to is at least two tablespoons each day, depending on what their body is telling them.” The suggested dose is one tablespoon per 40 pounds of body weight, but because of the supplement’s high fiber content, the effects on people can vary, he said.

The company also has grown in terms of distribution, going from mom-and-pop pet stores and veterinary clinics initially for the dog supplement to major outlets such as Petco. The human supplements are marketed through health food stores.

The next step for Designing Health is to come up with formulas targeting specific maladies for both humans and animals, such as joint health and inflammatory diseases. “We have a formulation for inflammatory types of diseases,” Collett said. “I have lupus, so this kind of product is very important to people like me.”

The company’s top seller to date, though, remains its canine supplement, especially the one-pound quantity, retailing at about $15. Retail costs for the Master Nutrient formula are $19 to $21 for a 56-tablespoon supply. Currently, 70% of the company’s sales are from the pet supplements.

As for Robert Collett, 63, he’s still running his veterinary clinic in Sylmar, although not so much hands-on anymore. “I usually practice veterinary medicine from 7 a.m. to noon, then I head over to Designing Health,” he said. “My brother runs the company, but I’m involved in new products.”

Keeping the company on its upward spiral is getting increasingly difficult given the growing number of competitors.

“We have six patents and, really, we were doing this before anyone else was,” Bernard Collett said. “So, sure, there’s competition out there, taking the ideas we’ve fostered and maybe putting out innovations in packaging. But I think people have a tough time knocking us off.”