We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mauri Carver a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Mauri, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

As a pet treat business, I believe every pet should have a healthy treat option. One that is tasty, has healthy benefits and is good for dogs.

Thanks to my quality control department, also known as the Snack Pack, I am able to try out new recipes and have immediate feed back. I make it a priority to spend one on one time with my customers and listen to what their needs are. One of the biggest things I have learned is that all dogs have their own taste pallet, and many have underlying allergies or food sensitivities. And, Believe it or not, not all dogs like peanut butter!

I think this sets us a part from most pet treat businesses’.

Mauri, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am the Owner, Founder and head Baker of Barking Blondes Bakery llc. I love my dogs and i want them to have the best in life, that includes healthy and delicious snacks. I feel like I am not the only pet owner who feels this way, I started researching ingredients that my allergy prone Goldens could enjoy and my bakery was born.

I offer grain and chicken fee dog biscuits, freeze dried organ meats for dogs and cats and 4 different cat treats. It’s not unusual to have lengthy conversations with my customers about their dogs with itchy skin, excessive paw licking and loss of hair, my biscuits target these fur babies. My base ingredients are coconut flour and coconut oil, both very good for animals and easy to digest. They are enhanced with flavors that are also great for pets, parsley and mint for bad breath, pumpkin for digestion and great gut health, and Turmeric (for everything) just to name a few.

I am working on more freeze dried treat recipes and hope to move into more nutritious dog food toppers. I see the need and my customers ask me often if I will be offering these things.

I look forward to my weekly farmers markets so i can visit with my regular guests and I look for ward to meeting future clients! Its amazing how I get great input from these folks, there are a couple of my flavors that have come from customer suggestions and even my bulk packaging was a suggestion by a weekly guest. They have been a huge part of my successful growth.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

I do bake all of my biscuits weekly. My biscuit recipe is actually based off of a peanut butter cookie that i had baked for my husband and I when we were practicing a Keto diet. Freya, my golden retriever, decided that was the cookie for her and ate all but 2 of them as they were cooling on the stove top. I immediately looked up all the ingredients to confirm they were all dog safe and low and behold they were! I revamped the recipe to remove sweeteners, salt, and chicken eggs and added in other healthy, dog friendly ingredients for different biscuits

I have had to hire a baker to help keep up with demand during our busy season. I believe this will become a permanent position within Barking Blondes as we grow

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

I was in the corporate world working for a small retail company as their Director of visual Merchandising and Store Design, I loved that job, but, life always has a way of changing things up. There was this little pandemic that happened, and, By the time all of our locations were allowed to reopen, the damage was done, and I was liquidating and closing locations along with our Florida office. I needed to do something that made me happy in between location closures, so I turned to what I love, my dogs.

I have 3 dogs, two of them have food allergies, so giving them store bought dog biscuits was not really an option. One day I made. Double batch of Freys cookies ( Now known as Droolers Delights), baked a double batch, created 2 other biscuit recipes and set up at my first local farmers market.

I learned a lot along the way. As my biscuit line grew, I learned more about pet allergies and better health and nutrition needs for dogs, so my line started to cater to those animals, no grain , no chicken, no gluten, low calorie and great for skin and coat and easy on their tummy. My customers began to come every week to refill their treat jars. Eventually, i had customers asking about cat treats, so, why not offer healthy cat treats too? Now available, 4 different freeze dried cat treats with and without catnip! Check out
Barking Blondes Bakery on Facebook, Instagram and on our website at Www.barkingblondesbakery.com

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.barkingblondesbakery.com
• Instagram: @Barking_Blondes_Bakery
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Barkingblondesbakery

Image Credits

Mauri Carver – Barking Blondes Bakery LLC
Harvest Market at Lake Ridge Plaza