Pet Wants ATL North: Enhancing Pet Health with Fresh Nutrition

In this episode of The Good Neighbor Podcast, host Stacy Poehler interviews Sergio De La Torre and Nick Owens, the owners of Pet Wants ATL North. They discuss their locally-owned pet nutrition business dedicated to improving pet health through fresh, slow-cooked food, and supplements. Sergio and Nick share their journey into the pet nutrition industry, their personal experiences with pet health, and their expansion from a mobile business to multiple brick-and-mortar stores in the Atlanta metropolitan area. They also address common myths about pet food, the importance of high-quality ingredients, and their involvement in the community. Listeners will learn about the exciting developments at Pet Wants ATL North, including their new store and sponsorship with the Atlanta Falcons.

00:00 Welcome to The Good Neighbor Podcast
00:17 Meet the Owners of Pet Wants ATL North
00:32 The Story Behind Pet Wants
04:21 Overcoming Challenges and Growing the Business
04:31 Debunking Myths About Pet Food
07:39 Personal Stories and Hobbies
09:57 Building a Community-Focused Business
13:11 Exciting News and Store Information
15:19 Conclusion and Farewell

Transcript

0:00

This is The Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Stacey Poehler All right everybody. I am excited for our podcast. We have with us the owners of Pet Wants ATL North. We have Sergio De La Torre and Nick Owens. Welcome guys. Hey Stacey. Thank you so much for having us. We're excited to be here. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. So why don't you start off by telling us about the business. Tell us about Pet Wants. Yeah. Thank you. So Pet Wants is locally owned Pet nutrition company. We focus entirely on help helping Pets live longer, healthier lives through better food, better education. I think one of the biggest things is we specialize in fresh, slow cooked, cut food treats and supplements. I think what really defines us though is how invested we are, not only in the community, but in the wellbeing of our local tech. Awesome. Awesome. And can you talk a little bit about what brought each of you into this business? So I'll go first. This is Sergio. I've always believed. This, solve real problems and show up consistently. I know for me, dogs have always been a constant in my life, and I saw how much nutrition impacts their health and longevity. I've got a 12-year-old English mastiff which is itself a huge anomaly for that breed and his size. So it really just changed my life, changed my perspective, and. At once gave me an opportunity to build a purpose driven business in Alpharetta. We've expanded dramatically. But that's where we started. We started here in Alpharetta and I think starting the business, and that helps solve a problem that focuses on purpose driven and it helps blend entrepreneurship, education, and community involvement and goes much beyond just transactions on a daily basis. Awesome. Awesome. And Sergio, you wanna talk a little bit about how you got into this company and how long you've been doing it? Yeah, so back in 2017, I was looking for the best nutrition I could for my dogs. I came across Pet Wants, it's a company, it's a national franchise that started in Cincinnati, Ohio, and came across the food, the story, and I was just incredibly impacted by. Why the company was founded and it was simply a dog owner that was having tremendous issues with their dogs and wanted to find a better solution. And so in 2017, I started ordering the food and having it mailed to me here in, in Roswell, Alpharetta. And I put had my dogs transition to the food. And so from 2017 to 2020. I fed absolutely nothing but Pet Wants food, Pet Wants, treats, supplements, chews, and I saw such a dramatic change in their everyday life. Their vitality, their energy, their coat, their eyes. So in 2020 we launched Pet Juan's Alpharetta as a mobile business. I remember many nights baking and packing beef jerky here in my dining room table. We've been part of the Alpharetta Farmer's Market since then. And, over the last five years we've. We've continued to grow and become a bigger part of the community to the point where we, we launched and opened our first. Brick and mortar store here in Alpharetta. We've actually expanded and bought three stores in the city that we're converting to Pet Ones. So we have four stores now in the Atlanta metropolitan area. In fact, we, when we launched, we were Pet Ones, Alpharetta, and today we're actually Pet Ones ATL North. That's awesome. What a great story. And so many businesses didn't make it through 2020, and here you are, one that started in 2020 and is growing and continues to grow today. That's. That's awesome. Can you tell us about any myths or misperceptions that might be out there about dog food or, the different types of dog food that are available and you know what people may be thinking that, they just don't know what they don't know. Yeah, I'll I'll jump in and take this question. One of the really big myths that we see is higher quality. Pet food is a luxury, but it's actually really all about preventative care. And when Pets eat better, they eat less, they're gonna feel better. And in return, that leaves families, they're able to avoid the bigger vet bills. And another misconception that we see is that all Pet food labels are transparent, like ingredient sourcing, freshness and how food is made. But more than anything it's really just about clever marketing. And Sergio, anything you'd like to add? Yeah. That's a great point by Nick. I just, if anything I wouldn't add I think, I just wanna reemphasize, a lot of times when we talk with folks, the thought is, if our food is so fresh, it's got the absolute highest quality ingredients. Pet Wants has never had a recall in its entire history. We've never used filler in our foods. I know there's some big food dog food companies that have started to actually include filler into their foods just to make it more profitable. But to Nick's point that even though we have the absolute best food and highest quality freshest. It's actually not necessarily more expensive than what they're already they're already paying for their adoption. Yeah, I can speak from personal experience because we have a black lab that had severe allergies and was back and forth to the vet all the time on, she was on Apoquel, we had full allergy testing done on her, and she was, eating the special allergy food that we would have to order online for her and wasn't, it wasn't getting better at all. And it was interesting when we got the results back from her allergy testing, she tested off the charts for dust mites. And I was like, oh my gosh, does that mean I have a dirty house? But I remember Sergio helped me understand that the commercially processed dog food actually has dust mites in it because it's sitting around for so long. And once we made the switch to Pet Wants, we were able to get her off of all of the allergy medication. And we've never looked back. And now all three of our dogs, eat your food and are happy and they're, they look good. Their coats look good. And it's really made a difference in our life. And going from, going to the vet for shots and everything, a couple of times a month to now just being normal people who, see the vet a couple of times a year. We've definitely made a difference in our lives here. That's amazing. Thank you for sharing. Yeah. Yeah. Talk a little bit about, what you do. Obviously you love spending time with your own Pets, but what do you do when you're not working and, and not helping people? That's a great question. I love to stay active. I am a longtime CrossFitter Olympic weightlifting love spending time with my wife, outdoors with our dogs. I hike a lot, walk a walk a lot. I think I was looking the other day and I think I've logged something like 500 miles of hiking this year. Wow. For me it just keeps me sharp, it keeps me grounded gives me energy, and I think it's really important when it comes to running and growing a business. And how about you, Sergio? That was Sergio. Sorry, Nick. What do you do? Yeah, so just like Sergio, I actually met Sergio at the CrossFit gym. Okay. So I am a CrossFitter as well. Sergio has a CrossFit garage gym, and usually three, four times a week. We'll hit a workout in there. Before the workday starts. The other thing I like to do is I like to do Ironman triathlons. So I've done four half Ironmans and then did one full and then completed two, two halfs this year. Wow, you're both pretty active and I wonder, and how much do your Pets keep, can they keep up with you? When you guys are doing all of your active things, do they go hiking with you and stuff? Yeah, so we, it's a funny, this Sergio, great question. We have huge dogs. I have. Zeus which we call the sheriff. And he's, he's about to be 12, but you wouldn't know it. He runs around like he's a puppy. I have Hera for all you Greek Mythologist, Zeus and Hera, but she is also a, an English ma. And then Nick has a king corso puppy. I do take the dogs on some of the hikes. They can't really. They'll keep up for two and a half, three miles. But they're just such big dogs that we'll hike, me and my wife will hike, come home, and then we'll take 'em on a 2, 2 3 mile hike, or excuse me, walk. Yeah. Nice, nice. Starting any business is, it is never easy. Can you guys talk a little bit about maybe some of the hardships you've had along the way or some of the. Obstacles you've had to overcome and that have brought you to the place you are and made you stronger as people and business owners. Yeah, I lo I, I actually love this question, Stacey. Again, this is Sergio, but I think for me the biggest thing I became a father when I was 18 years old, which forced me to grow up fast and think long term. That experience built the discipline and re resilience that I rely on as a business owner. I stay calm under pressure, managing risk, and making decisions that last. Those lessons show up every single day in how I lead and serve our Alpharetta community. Awesome. And how about you, Nick? I would say that's a really great question. I would say just gathering the knowledge and experience over the first few years of becoming a business owner has been one of the biggest challenges. Just to come in relatively green. I'm a younger business owner, but under the guidance of Sergio I've been able to learn a lot, grow a lot, and then definitely start to lead our people at, within our company. And what were you both doing before you got into Pet Wants? What were your previous careers and jobs? Fun fact is Pet Wants has always been, the quote unquote side gig. Only because I've had a 22 year career in wealth management. I actually worked for a global wealth management firm with Fidelity investments, and here in the last seven years have have taken my book private. And so we actually, Nick also. Works with me in the wealth management business, but we still have a book of business of clients that we lead. Wow. So we have our wealth management business, which helps us on the financial side. We're constantly helping our clients make the best financial decisions and then we take those lessons and then we apply business with. That's great. So that's how you guys know each other then? Yeah. So me and Nick met, like he said at the at the CrossFit gym. A cool story. It's a little bit long-winded, so we'll, we'll have you come into the store and we'll tell you the details of our you know how me and Nick met each other and we became good friends and now business partners. Nick I'm not trying to steal your thunder here, but he worked with Pat once as he left high school and went into college. I remember Nick would come into town, pick up bags, shopping bags, take them back to college, stamp 'em with our Pet Wa stamp, and then bring them to me the following week. And then he got a degree in financial planning at Georgia, and so then I hired him. He was my intern for a couple years, and then I hired him full-time as my associate advisor. Nice. Nice. What's something that you guys wish that our listeners knew about Pet Wants and, the services and food that you offer that you haven't gotten a chance to share yet? I. Well, that's a, that's another really good question. One thing I'd like everybody to know is we're deeply rooted in Alpharetta. You'll find us at the Alpharetta Farmers Market from April through November, and we're proud sponsors of the Alpharetta Business Association and some exciting news that just came about in the past few weeks. Is we are now an associate sponsor, an official dog Pet provider of the Atlanta Falcons. Wow. Pretty cool. It's pretty cool. Everything we do is about building trust, consistency and long-term relationships. Awesome. And can you tell us a little bit about the new store and what people can expect when they stop in? Yeah, so our Alpharetta store is on Highway nine and Windward. Our address is 1 2 8 5 0 highway nine Suite 1700. That's the, I always tell people it's the Winward Commons or the Kroger Shopping Center. We, you can shop online at Pet Wants atl north.com. You could visit us at the alpha at a farmer's market or follow us on social media at Pet Wants ATL North, but come to the store, bring questions. Absolutely. Please bring your dog. We'd love to meet you and let us tell you about who we are. Show you some of the things we do. We have. Nutrition certified staff that can guide you and not only understanding who your Pet is and what their needs are, but what products and services that suit you and your family. Awesome, awesome. Thank you guys so much for joining me tonight. It was great getting to talk to you a little bit more and learn the story. And I hope everybody stops by and checks you guys out. Thank you so much for having us. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to The Good Neighbor Podcast, Milton, and more. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gmp milton.com. That's gmp milton.com. Or call 4 7 0 6 6 4 4 9 3.