The location for the interview is found quickly. As a “crazy cat-lady”, as she calls herself, Madeline Metzsch knows two cat cafés in Berlin. We choose Zur Mieze in Charlottenburg. There, at the last free table on a rainy Friday afternoon, three very happy women are sitting, scratching cats’ heads and whispering to each other – because of the cats. It’s actually very quiet in Zur Mieze, coffee is only available in the French Press, the coffee machine is too loud, says the landlady. Because cats like it quieter.
What the three Katzenkraulerinnen plan, however, is not quiet at all, but a very courageous undertaking. You are venturing into a market with great potential and large volume: According to the Pet Supplies Industry Association the total German turnover in pet supplies in 2022 was almost 6.5 billion euros. But: This market is full of competitors, some of them gigantic fish. Whiskas, Sheba, Pedigree and Cesar. All established brands that are familiar even to non-pet owners.
read too
However, the three founders have one advantage, they are armed with a considerable amount of previous experience: Madeline Metzsch, Saskia te Kaat and Stefanie Zillessen know each other from their previous work for the Berlin children’s food brand Freche Freunde. They were among the first employees and experienced first-hand and in key roles how a start-up can shake up conservative market segments. Because while the comparison might not seem appropriate, products for kids and those for pets work pretty much the same, as the three Strayz founders discover.
Strayz: Pre-seed and currently fundraising
In startup terms, their animal feed company is in the pre-seed area, says Stefanie Zillessen, who is responsible for operations. Strayz has relied primarily on organic growth since it was founded at the end of 2020. A few business angels have supported the startup to a small extent – above all their ex-boss, Freche-Freunde founder Alexander Neumann and Helpling founder Philip Huffmann. Now they are looking for venture capitalists. This is currently not an easy task. “Sometimes it was: No Tech? No AI? Not so awesome,” Madeline Metzsch remembers. She is the initiator of the startup and now heads the brand and marketing department.
“With a VC investment, faster expansion into retail would be possible,” explains Saskia te Kaat, Head of Sales and Finance. Strayz started with an online shop for wet cat food. The three quickly went into stationary retail, first in drugstores such as Budni and Rossmann, again benefiting from their time with cheeky friends. Almost only a few courses away from the children’s snacks. Only then did they venture into unknown territory and are now also listed with cat and dog food in specialist shops, for example at Fressnapf.
“Now we want to position ourselves really well on the sales side,” explains te Kaat. Because if you want to be in the range of large retailers such as Rewe, you need a very good sales force. “It’s exciting to determine the ideal pace of growth,” she says. In a “goods-heavy business” like hers, it is important to grow strategically.
“We have the proof of concept,” adds Stefanie Zillessen. “Now we need the money to scale.” Then you could finally invest more in marketing.
read too
While the three women in the cat café are talking about setting up their business, a dozing black tomcat lounges in a pink basket next to their table. He opens his yellow eyes briefly, looks around, yawns and turns his head to the side. What should there be disruptively new in his world? Innovations that change markets? Cats sleep, cats eat. That’s how it was and that’s how it will always be.
“In contrast to Madeline and Saskia, I knew absolutely nothing about the animal feed sector,” admits Zillessen, “and when we started, I approached the shelf with a marketing and product development perspective. There wasn’t a single cool brand there.” The packaging alone all looks like it’s from the nineties. The brand concept, as they helped develop it at Freche Freunde, could also have a lot of potential here.
Awareness of good food is also coming into the animal feed sector
“It was probably courageous to go into this market,” says Metzsch. “But on the other hand, not either: If you consider the great awareness of good products in the food sector, how much people question things, it stands to reason that this would also happen in the animal feed sector at some point.” Because questions, why in that There is only four percent chicken meat in the product, although the food is flavored with “chicken”, which makes sense.
Metzsch is happy to provide the answer: the remaining ingredients are fur, hooves, hooves, uterus, all processed into animal meal – at least that’s how other animal feed manufacturers would process their articles. But also with: preservatives, binding agents, sometimes sugar, so that the animal feed can lie in a caramel-brown gravy that is appetizing by human standards. As a brand that sees itself in the premium segment, Strayz starts here first. “We have 95 percent meat,” says Metsch proudly. And: good meat is that, in the sense of organic, regional and not just the very last residue of meat production.
Of course it’s meat anyway. “It was quite a step from a fruit and vegetable start-up to a meat product manufacturer,” says the founder. And this despite the fact that the team is almost entirely vegan or vegetarian. But: A meat-free diet is simply not species-appropriate for cats – in contrast to dogs, for which Strayz also has a vegan option in its range. The black cat next to her yawns again, showing his sharp fangs as if to emphasize the point.
Not only the old corporations are bustling about in the animal feed market, there are also young brands with a premium claim. Fred & Felia, for example, is one of them, also makes cat and dog food, and was able to win star chef Tim Raue as a testimonial. Other new brands are called Wildcraft or Müllers Naturhof.
read too
Like Startup Share, but for dogs and cats
In order to set themselves apart, the Strayz founders not only work on products that didn’t exist before – a soup for cats, for example. They also follow a logic: Rolex doesn’t just sell watches, it sells status. Apple not electrical devices, but innovations. Harley-Davidson not motorcycles, but a lifestyle. And so Strayz also has something on offer that goes beyond pet food alone: In principle, the startup is the “share of the pet food department”. This means that with every product sold, a donation is automatically made, for example to animal protection organizations that are committed to rescuing stray cats and street dogs. More than a million food donations, but also money for medical help and castrations have been collected so far.
The founders explain in an interview in the cat café that rescuing strays is an essential part of the brand. That doesn’t always make the search for investors any easier: “People sometimes ask how flexible you are with donations, whether you couldn’t reduce their share a bit in favor of profit,” says te Kaat with a grin. But of course they would be out of the question for the social pet food brand that they are. Because the three cheerful Cat Ladies are very serious about what they do.