Episode 3 - Independent Pet Stores, transforming lives

Hear about holsitic pet health from owner of Pet Deli. An independently owner holistic pet store in Adelaide, Australia. Transforming lives and building a collective of holistic health experts.

To learn more about Pet Deli check out their website or social below
petdeli.au
@petdeliau

To follow and connect with Dr. Roz and Australian Pet Nutrition
Follow on socials - @australianpetnutrition or connect for education, nutraceuticals, food and more at australianpetnutrition.com.au

Chapters

• 1:53 The Shift Towards Holistic Alternatives in the Pet Health Industry
• 3:21 Educating Pet Owners and Health Practitioners about Fresh Food Feeding
• 4:44 The Benefits of Adding Fresh, Real Whole Food to Pets' Diets
• 6:34 Creating a Team of Experts to Support Pet Owners
• 16:55 Starting Small and Seeking Guidance in the Transition to Holistic Pet Health

Transcript

Roz Rowen (00:57)
hello and welcome to the next episode of the raw truth, real health podcast. I'm super excited to have a holistic pet store owner from our very own Adelaide and please welcome Fiona to the podcast.

Hi, hi everyone. Nice to meet you all. Fiona has made a very successful transition from the corporate world to running a holistic pet shop in Adelaide. So I'm here to get her thoughts about all things running a business in the pet health industry and also making that transition. So Fiona, tell us what it's like to be making that transition from the corporate world to now running Pet Deli in Adelaide. Well, to start with, it was an amazingly

challenging, challenging decision. And I had 27 years experience in where I was working. I loved my job. I traveled Australia in my job. I was well paid. I had holiday pay, had sick pay and everything else like that. So let me just say there were a few meltdowns and I expected the first two years to be challenging, which we've passed. the first six months, 12 months were really, really difficult, but I've loved the change. All the stresses are now my own.

and I've surrounded myself by experts. So I'm not an expert. when I started, I'm definitely becoming that and the people I've got into my life helped me supported me where my cheer squad and everything else. If it didn't have all of those people in my life, it would have been a different story. So I'm very blessed, but I've loved the journey so far. Yeah, that's fantastic. Now, do you think in the last few years of being

in the pet health business that you've seen more of a shift of pet owners towards looking for holistic alternatives or has it kind of stayed the same? my experience from when I first started, we've really put a lot of social media out about the fresh food feeding and you see a lot more talk about the fresh food feeding and it's absolutely becoming more and more visible. And the biggest thing is it just makes sense. So when we talk about human

dietary requirements and health requirements. The first thing that our doctors tell us if we've got any health issues is to remove processed foods, which is absolutely what dry food is in our industry and canned foods. It's all processed and ultra processed. So it just makes sense to fresh, real whole food, exactly what we get told. Real whole food is better for us. So, you know, it just makes sense to add something fresh into the diet and people are starting to see that and see the benefits of that as well.

And do you think pet owners are being met with open arms from their health practitioners or do you think there's still a lot of pushback there from vets and other health practitioners? My own experience is I started my breeder of my Indy told us that feed, feed fresh. And then I went into the vet and they're going, you're going to kill your dog if you feed fresh and you need to feed dry food and all this kind of stuff. So Indy is about 10 years old.

but then I met Deb, the previous owner of Pet Deli and she guided me and talked me through and made me understand and I became educated on it. so no, I don't think that they're yet. we do have some vets which are on board. anytime I go into the vet still it's, I'm like, what are you feeding? And that's the reason, or I have friends going in with dogs with health issues. if it's fresh food, that's the reason you need to go into dry food.

So not yet, but I definitely think there is a movement towards that. And I am hearing some vets locally here in Adelaide are very supportive of that. And we work with some of them as well. So the trend is definitely starting, which is great. Yeah, it's interesting that you say, you know, pet owners are sort of threatened with imminent death from feeding fresh, but you know, when we go to the doctor and we're not threatened with imminent death from feeding, you know, eating our chocolate or our muffins, we know it's not healthy, but

We it's not going to cause immediate death. So there's a lot of extreme there, which is, you know, interesting to see when it's drastic in what we're feeding. Yeah. Just feeding real, you know, products from animals, you know, and some plant matter. So that's really, really interesting perspective. What do you think, you know, in your experience needs to change the most in the pet health industry? I think.

The vets are amazing and the work they do is brilliant, but I think they need, I do understand why they see fresh food feeding can be done incorrectly. And the more convenient way is doing fresh, dry food because they do see the bad side of some of the things that people aren't doing correctly. What I would like to see is that vets educate themselves.

and see another side of the fresh food feeding and see what benefits there are as well. And I said, just adding fresh food to a dry food, being a hybrid diet, it's got huge, huge benefits. So if they can try and understand that a bit and understand that bones, for example, they get a lot of feedback on bones. If you go to the butcher and get a bone, they'll give you a marrow bone. A marrow bone holds up a 500 plus kilo animal. So it's super, super strong.

So they're the ones that can splinter. They're the ones that can damage their gut, break their teeth and all that kind of stuff. Cause it's such a strong bone. All that marrow at once is not great for them either. So, you know, try not non -weight bearing bones and things like that. If we can get the vets to understand that there's different alternatives and say, look, don't, don't fresh feed, do this. Cause it's convenient, but actually get some learning themselves and understand it.

Yeah. And it's really interesting because we've talked about referrals, right? We've talked about how, know, in the human world, you go to a GP and they know they're not experts in nutrition. They'll do a on referral to a nutritionist. And that's something that has been really big at Pet Deli is my understanding you've set up those referrals. So you've got a pet nutritionist that can help ensure that pet owners are making that transition to things like DIY or even picking the right pre -mades. And has that been successful?

Yes. And look, we're still working on that, but my dream when I started this business was to again, surround myself with experts. So what I found frustrating as a pet owner was that you had to go here and there and everywhere. And I wanted a group of people that could actually help me. So we can get you started in pet deli, absolutely, you know, guide you in the right direction of getting started in fresh food feeding. But sometimes there's health issues or sometimes there's other kinds of issues. So I've got a pet nutritionist. I've got a massage, I've got a physio, I've got a vet.

I've got a teeth cleaner, I've got a dog trainer. So there's lots of things involved in all of that. And I'm calling it the Pet Deli Collective so that you can come to us. I've got support, you've got support and it's all based in one area. And I've built a room specifically for that. Because if I, as you just said before, if you have got health issues yourself, you go to the GP, you get a referral to a nutritionist. You don't speak to the GP about it. You speak to the nutritionist about it.

It's exactly the same thing here. You don't speak to a vet about nutrition. You go to a nutritionist. And you yourself being a nutritionist yourself. And I've also got Daniela from Holistic Dog here in Adelaide. So, you know, I'm surrounding myself with that. And then there's supplements that we can take. Making the right choices in all of those as well. We take our own supplements. So if we choose to feed our pets the same way as us, you're on the right way. Don't get me wrong.

I eat KFC, I eat McDonald's, I just had a piece of chocolate before. We're all guilty. We're all guilty of it. It doesn't have to be perfect, but adding fresh food into your dog's, cat's, whatever diet is going to be massively beneficial. Yeah, I agree. And I think we've got a long way to go in creating this kind of like team around our pets and also changing that mindset that we can't be an expert in everything. We, you know, we have to pick.

pick our battles and pick what we want to be experts in and then align with those that are experts in other areas. We have a saying here that the dog should be first always or the cat should be first always. So it's really about putting ego aside and making sure we have those referral systems. And it's fantastic to see that you have that in place and I'm sure it will grow. And I am definitely growing it. Yes. Yes. Anyhow, please let me know. Yes. Well, anyone can reach out with ideas. I love that.

Now, what would you say you've seen hundreds of animals come through over the years? What in your mind just sits as, you know, the biggest transformation you've seen from them coming to your store or working as part of your pet collective team? What's been your most memorable moment? Well, there's so many, it's really hard to tell, but just the basic stuff of going to, you know, from dry food to fresh food is

the change in the pet themselves. So there could be behavioral issues which are improved, skin conditions, fur, coat, poops. So I think the biggest thing that I say to most of the pet parents is that the biggest thing you'll notice when you go from processed foods to fresh food is their poops. So again, my own experience, I actually fed my dog a product called Raw Fed Riley, Paige, shout out to you.

And I was that terrified that her poops changed significantly. I actually rang Paige and said, can you come and look at my dog's poop? The reason being is with processed products, the poops are big and smelly and they fart a lot and all that kind of stuff because the body doesn't take all the nutrients from that product. So it gets rid of the stuff that it doesn't need. And with fresh food,

it takes all of that beautiful nutrients from the product. So the waste is a lot smaller. So you have firmer poops, smaller poops, less smelly. And for my dog personally, she had a lot of anal gland issues because those poops were firmer, it helped her anal glands. So they're all the kinds of things that we speak to all of our customers a lot about. Obviously there's some health issues and I've reached out to yourself, Roz and Daniela and that's skin anxiety, et cetera.

they're the most common things that we see, but we just see a happier, healthier pet in the most run. And they stop eating their processed food and they want to eat the fresh food. So yeah, that's the biggest things that we see. How smart are dogs that that transition is often so easy because they're like, my God, this is good for me. I'm going to eat it. Yeah. Which I love. I always say that to owners like how smart are your dogs? Like they just know what's crap and what's not. So that, you know, that helps us for sure.

But also, know, with the bones, et cetera, that we talking about before, so many, vets say don't eat bones and going back to what I said before about which bones you choose, they're like, my God, my dog is so happy when they're having a, having a bone and having a true cause actually releases happy hormones in your pet. and same with cats and it cleans their teeth and everything. My dog's teeth are so clean and she's 10. so yeah, there's all those benefits. Just like totally.

off my topic of questions, but what's your favorite like protein or bone that you love to get dogs or cats onto when they come into transition? So the biggest thing is obviously the size of the dog or the cat. So cats generally starting them on things like chicken necks are really, really good. Cause they're obviously a lot smaller and it's a nice easy one to start them with. And with dogs, really depends on the dog. So if you have got, I don't know, a chihuahua, I would start with a chicken neck, et cetera.

But if you have a rottweiler, turkey necks, duck wings, we've got kangaritas, I've got goat necks at the moment, which is amazing. there's so many different ones there. Beef brisket is, sorry, beef rib bones are really good for cleaning their teeth because they have to use the front teeth, side teeth, back teeth to get the bone clean of the ligaments, the muscle tissue, all that kind of things. They might not necessarily eat the bone, but it's really, really good for them to clean their teeth.

So there's so many different things. My go -to for Indy, I put a bone in every pack of food that I do for her, duck wings, duck feet, chicken feet. And then once a week, I'll just give her a whole daily intake of a big bone, which this week was a goat neck. It's just variety is key. Absolutely. And it's, it's also just exciting for the dog to see them get excited to have something different. say, you know, I love sweet potato, but if I eat that every day,

that sweet potato has a set nutritional profile. So I need to be getting the nutritional profile of other ingredients to make my intake complete and balanced. So yeah, that's great to see. I've said, I've, you know, we're going to put the website to Pet Deli on the podcast, but it's a great range. And I love that, you know, every time you go there, you could actually get something different for your dog. So thank you. And that's what I'm trying to do. So,

When I took over the business, basically kept it exactly the same. was because you know, Deb had done such an amazing job with the quality of products that she had in there. But I had one customer ask me, said, she goes, can you get this? Can you get this? You sent me a challenge and I'll try and get it for you. So anytime a customer comes to me and I met those challenges too, by the way, thanks to Eva. And if you want me to try and get something, I will try and sort of, I can't always get it. But at the moment, for example, I've got

crocodile feet. mean you just don't get that kind of stuff in in Adelaide. Fresh beef ears, fresh beef nose, all those things which are just different because you need to rotate the food that you're giving your pets but I always try and source something different and the meats that I've got now I get some locally from Mount Compass which is just an amazing product. It's all human grade, grass -fed down to your pet food grade. So I've got a really really big range goat, duck,

turkey, beef, kangaroo, so many choices. And then we've also got the pre -mades as well. So you can get started by using pre -made. So you've got something for everyone and you every price range, which that's often a comment, isn't it? That I don't want to switch because it's not going to be economical. It's very expensive. What would you say in response to that? So it depends on the meat that you choose. And as I mentioned before, even if it's a hybrid diet, you can always choose that as well. But the good that

Good quality dry foods are just as expensive. So I fed my dog who's 17 and a half kilos, this is pre me owning a store, 50 bucks a fortnight. I don't feel that that's expensive. Obviously prices have gone up a little bit now, but if you choose a chicken mince, which is the chicken carcass, that's $3 .90 a kilo, as opposed to a goat, which is 12 .95 a kilo.

and all your pre -mades or you can mix your pre -mades with the cheaper meats. So you can, we can make it suit any budget. And as I said, any addition of fresh food is an improvement to just processed food. 100%. And that's the thing, like you said, you've got the collective, you've got an amazing knowledge yourself. There's nothing really stopping anybody, know, seeking, you know, exploring that curiosity. I would say lean into it. There's always someone who's willing to help in that journey.

The team that I have, sorry to cut you off. The team that I have also is just amazing. So I've got Alex who's been there in the business for 12 years in the industry for quite some time. I've got Ellie, who's a casual staff member starting to be a vet. I've got another girl Bianca who also works at a zoo. So her knowledge of animals is just a different level again. And she used to be a dog trainer and she's, you know, so my staff are just so qualified as well to help you.

wasn't for them, I probably wouldn't have survived because I helped me. so yeah, anytime, anyone that you speak to in there will be able to help you. Yeah, that's great. So what, what would you say is your tip for those that are really curious, might've, you know, thought about stepping into a holistic pet shop, but haven't made the leap. What would be your advice to them? Just try it. If it's not for you, it's not for you. If it is for you, no worries.

But the difference between stepping into ours is the advice and support and help and guidance that you get. I will help educate you as opposed to just telling you what to get. So I'll give you Facebook pages to look at because let's be honest, we all know Facebook pages can be a little bit interesting. So I will guide you into the right ones. Books to read. There's some simple books out there to help, but just try, just start. You don't have to be perfect. I think especially women, myself.

very much included in the statement. We overthink everything. We think it needs to be perfect. We think every single meal has to be perfect. Have you got children? Did you raise children and they're okay? And again, I eat not everything perfect. Doesn't have to be perfect. Just start and adding some chicken mince to what you're currently feeding or sardine or something like that. Just come in and see us and we'll help support you through that journey. Your dogs and cats are both welcome.

I often say I bought a pet store for my own therapy. So my own therapy is seeing those animals. love seeing them. So we make them the center of attention and we've got accessories. We've got, supplements. We've got bones, meat, Tony, a little store, but I call it my TARDIS and it's, it's got lots of things in there. So just check out our website, come in and visit us, come in and talk to us. Little store, big knowledge by the sounds. Yes. Well, that's what we're hoping for. Just, you know, just the support.

Old school service. We know your pet, we know you, we know your family, we know, you know, everything about you, and opposed to going to these big stores where you're just a number, your little bit of, you know, input for us is just amazing. And we learn from you, you learn from us, and we become a little community. Yeah, I think there's a lot to be said about being old school in a world of technology. And I think people do value that, particularly we live in a world now where there are

lots and lots of pet owners and people don't have children, they have pets first and we treat those pets like children. So that's become more more important to care for them like we would care for humans. So yeah, absolutely. There are babies and I think my baby's sitting on the floor right next to me right now. So yeah, I'm surrounded as well. have to have backhand on because otherwise it's just dogs and dog beds everywhere. Yeah.

Now I do this question to everybody, but I'm guilty of this. is like we said, why we go into the pet health business really, that there's one animal, be it dog or cat that completely changes our life trajectory or life as we know it. Who's the pet that did that to you and what's the story? I grew up in a household surrounded by animals. My dad was never an animal lover, but my mum on the other hand, massive animal lover.

And even just from our first dog, Tina, and then our next dog, Pebbles, we always had interesting names to our guinea pigs, our chickens, everything was just rotated around animals. But Pebbles, our border collie, across, everything was always across. We entered pet shows, we did all sorts of things. And that's, think, where my love for border collies came from. And then when I moved out on my own, went to Perth, I didn't have any family or friends there.

I bought a cat, her name being Moni. She was just the best and worst of any cat you'll ever come. She wasn't the nicest, but she was the most loyal cat you'd ever find. And now as an adult with my first dog, Indy, she is my world. She just makes me go outside and do stuff and help. And I get out and walk, I get out and just get back to nature, which I just absolutely love and I wouldn't probably do without her.

In a nutshell, all animals. but yes, I just grew up surrounded by them. That was my life. Yep. And if you knew then what you know now about pet health, what's one thing that you would do differently? my goodness. Not feed processed foods. That are probably my biggest thing. and I'm sure everyone from my era won't give away how old I am, but we all, you know, we used to smack our dogs and rub their noses in the wee and all that kind of stuff. It's more, you know, being kind to them and encouraging and all that kind of stuff as opposed to.

How we used to treat them. Leftovers, know, even leftovers were the much better way of feeding. So, yeah, definitely more holistic view on our pets' health and treating them just as a child in your family. Yeah, I love that. And it's important to remember that knowledge isn't stagnant. It's constantly changing and it's a hard thing to adapt. It's a hard thing to change our views on things because they become so ingrained in who we are. But when we know more, we really can do more, can't we?

Absolutely. Training, training, training something I wasn't perfect at, but indeed in the next month will be a little bit better, but yes, always learning. That's it. Okay. And my second last question, if I had $60 to spend in pet deli and I'm coming in as, know, very curious about transitioning to fresh feeding, what should I spend my money on? goodness gracious. Every

Every single customer is different with that particular question. So that's really, really hard. I would just start with introducing some fresh meat and or sardines and a bone. starting at the beginning. And as we all know, we also have intolerances to some foods. Some of our pets may have that. So it's always good to get an indication of that early. So you might start on beef and chicken, or you might start on kangaroo or goat, depending on your age of the pet.

and other people we've also suggested if they've already had some fresh food to go into one of the pre -mades, which, not sure how everyone's going to know about this, but bath, which is biological, appropriate raw food, which has got your meat, your awful, your vegetables and bone content in it all ready to go. So if you've already had a journey of starting with meats, fresh meats, I would push them towards the pre -maids whilst they're getting their head around learning how to do it themselves. If that's the path they want to go down.

Yeah, that's fantastic. if people want to get in touch, find out more about what you do, there might even be listening from South Australia. tell us where we can find Pet Deli, how we can follow you, all that fun stuff. So we are in Marion. we are an independent store. So it's just one of us, on shop one, 788 Marion road Marion.

those of you who live down south opposite the old Marion Sand and Metal. Petdeli .au is our website, Facebook, Instagram, that could all be found on our website. You can do online ordering, click and collect. We're not doing deliveries just yet because we do actually prefer people to come in face to face. We love talking to you, we love learning about you. So come in for a visit first and foremost, bring your pets.

Cats are very welcome, birds have been in all sorts of things and come in and just meet us. I said I have a lot of customers now that will order online but still come into the shop and then we still have a chat and things change. Anyway, message, Facebook, phone, email, whatever you like. So in summary, if you want some old school service where you're valued as a customer and your pet is valued as a pet,

Just reach out any way you can. You're guaranteed to get help and support from Pet Deli and they will start you on your holistic pet health journey. Thank you so much for joining me. I can't wait for this episode to air and share all the wonderful things that are happening in the pet industry here in Australia. Thanks, Roz. Bye.