John Roberts: Director of Muttley's Estate on the first shelf stable pet friendly wine

A new horticultural initiative is set to transform New Zealand into a commercial catnip producer. 

Kiwi startup, Muttley's Estate, is believed to be the world’s first manufacturer of catnip-based 'pet wine', that can be stored for up to 12 months. 

The garden herb's estimated to positively impact mood in about two-thirds of cats while helping to soothe anxiety in dogs. 

Muttley's Estate Director John Roberts told Mike Hosking catnip's currently not very widespread or commercially used. 

He says they're trying to grow that market segment, as it's a relatively easy crop to grow. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Catnip. It's the next big thing for our export industry. Apparently,
first catnip based wine taps into a growing trend for
the human afication, humanification of pet diet. Apparently it's backing
from the New Zealand trading and enterprise to go global.
Apparently John Roberts is the director of Muttley's Estate and
he's doing all of this and he's well this John,

(00:20):
very good morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
I've looked at your website. Looks quite cool. Cat nip itself.
How widespread, how commercially used is it, whether in wine
or not?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Commercially not very at the moment. We're trying to grow
that market segment. It's a relatively easy crop to grow.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Okay, So you take a bottle of this and your
your marketing is quite clever, by the way, per no
et cetera. And you put what a little bit in
the food or they drink it straight the catt or
the dog.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
They drink it straight out of the bottle. It's a
RTD wow.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
And they And can you tell whether when you say they,
you know, sort of distresses them or can you tell
that for sure?

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Or yeah, definitely you can with dogs especially especially older
dogs or dogs around fireworks. It really does seem to
calm them down when you put it in the bowl.
They just jumped straight at it. During one of our
tasting events in Herne Bay and also lloyd Alsmore in
East Auckland, the dogs ended up actually rolling around in

(01:22):
the bowl of the catnet try and get it on
their skin.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Okay, and shelf stable seems to be the key. You've
made the stuff shelf stable? How have you done that?
Is that complex?

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah? It took quite a bit of R and D
to get some of the earlier batches. We needed to
have a little play around with, but yeah, we finally
managed to figure it out.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Wow. And so you've got the market ish sort of
to yourself at the moment. What's the plan for the upscale?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Same for the upscale is exporting at the moment. We've
only been around for a short while getting good support locally,
vet clinics, pet retailers, that sort of thing. But we
are targeting the US and the Australian markets.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
And what sort of growth do you see or you
just wouldn't dip your toe in and see what happens.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Growth in terms of the actual markets themselves is growing
quite rapidly. I think it's a five point seven percent
projected growth in the pet treet market in New Zealand
going forward. But the global pet treat market is just massive.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
People mental, I mean what we're Anyone who's got a
pet goes mental, don't they. There's no amount of money
you are not prepared to spend on your pet.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, I mean even in America they've got designer dog
clothes like Hugo Boss hoodies.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, what's wrong with that? I've got one of those. No,
I'm kidding, I haven't got one of those. Exactly do
you come from catnip? From pet food? How do you
get into this?

Speaker 2 (02:48):
My family in veterary pharmaceuticals, so we've had a veterary
pharmaceutical company founded by my grandfather for a number of years.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
There you go, well, congratulations on it. I hope it
goes extremely well for you and we'll stay in touch
and chart you journey. John Roberts, who's director of Mutley's Estate.
Have a look at their little website. It's quite cool
if you're into the catnap. That's the other thing along
with coffee, isn't it. Once you get a pet Sam,
he's got a pit house. Day three of the pit,
by the way, is the day three of the pit
Day one. Unfortunately, doggy did the poopoos inside. I said,

(03:20):
sounds standard. Yeah, at least the doggie didn't do the
poopoos inside on the dining table, because there isn't one.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
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Speaker 1 (03:32):
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