May 20, 2025 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Mitch Felderhoff, co-owner of Muenster Milling in Muenster, Texas, decided to put his mouth where his money is eating nothing but dog food for 30 days to raise awareness for his brand. It worked. Here's Mitch with the story of his wild PR stunt.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
This is our American stories, and our next story is
about a family owned business. Mitch Felderhoff is the co
owner of Munster Milling, a fourth generation family owned and
operated animal food manufacturer. You might have seen Mitch in
the news recently because he decided to eat nothing but
the specialized dog food his company makes for thirty straight days.
(00:35):
It got our attention. Here's Mitch.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
My name is Mitch Felderhoff, and I'm one of the
fourth generation owners of Munster Milling Company. I grew up
in the business and as my parents were getting ready
to retire, they had considered selling the business, and my
brother and I didn't want to see that happened. So
we went to the bank and found a way to
came up with the money and purchase the business from them.
(01:04):
They were kind of reluctant to invest in. You know,
it's a big investment, and they had put thirty forty
years into the business, and I think they were kind
of ready to take a breath and take a break.
And you know, we were young, hungry and ready to
change the world. So we said, hey, we'll take the
gamble and we'll go do it. We had things that
we wanted to do a little bit differently than what
(01:25):
had been done in the past, and the easiest way
for us to do it was to take control of
the business. It was just regular standard kibble for the
most part, is what we made, and when we purchased it,
we wanted them to kind of change the way we
did things, and so we incorporated freeze ride into our
product lineup along with the ability to customize a single
(01:46):
bag of food. Actually, so now we can add bacon
fat or salmon oil to a single bag if we
wanted to. You know, our goal was to reduce carbohydrates
and pet food and make dog food different than what
a lot of people currently are and so we made
the move and put a freeze dryer in about a
year ago, which essentially is the ability to make astronaut
(02:06):
food for dogs. So we're taking raw food and pulling
the moisture out while it's frozen and essentially leaving just
raw organ meat that's shelf stable. So the way freeze
drying works that's different than kibble is you're taking raw
frozen meat and you stick it in this giant chamber
that looks kind of like a shipping container, probably weighs
(02:28):
about forty pounds, and it's stainless steel, and we pull
a vacuum on it so there's no more air in
there than there is an outer space. And then we
get it down to our negative sixty degrees fahrenheit, and
we heat the trays up to you anywhere between thirty
and forty degrees fahrenheit. And when you have that big
(02:52):
of a temperature difference in a vacuum, it causes a
process called sublimation where water goes from the ice form
to a vapor form. And so it's kind of like
watching dry ice sit on the table. You know, it
just kind of evaporates and you see what looks like
cold steam coming out of it. That's the process to
free strike, and the benefit to it is you don't
(03:12):
have to have a bunch of starches and sugars in
there to hold the product together. You know, it's still
in its quote unquote frozen state, but all the moisture
has been removed. Kibble. You have to heat it up
to you know, two hundred and ninety degrees, put a
lot of pressure on it, and then dry it in
an oven afterwards. And the free strike is such a delicate,
gentle process that if you've got a dog that has
(03:34):
stomach issues, allergies of any sort, this is almost a
full proof thing that you can be them. And so
the past four years has really been focused on how
do we remove carbohydrates and make food less inflammatory and
still be a major employer in a little town that
we grew up in. It's one of those what can
we do that Nestle and Mars can't, and they make
(03:57):
more kibble than anybody in the world. Dog obesity is
at a almost a crisis level, fifty four percent of
dogs or obese, and we thought, how can we combat that?
And so brother and I were just talking and said,
you know, it's it's hard to make a kibble that's
low enough carbohydrates to make a difference. And the only
(04:17):
way to really kind of push the envelope on it
is to start to incorporate more protein and vat via
freeze drying. So we're using beef, chicken, fish, elk and
just started using bison. So I came up with the
idea a couple of years ago when I walked into
a store and I just saw tons and tons of
(04:38):
marketing from these other companies, and I thought, I can't
compete with that, we don't have the bankroll to do it,
and we don't have the ability to write the checks.
But what can I do that can help get our
company out there and help us be noticed and kind
of get the point across that we care more than them.
And just kind of had the idea that, you know what,
(04:58):
I'm willing to need our dog food for thirty days only.
I don't think any of these other companies would be.
You know, for about two years, I just kicked it
around on maybe I should do it, maybe I shouldn't.
And then my wife and I were on our ten
year anniversary trip, and you know, you're just you're thinking,
and hey, I have I Have I done life the
way I wanted to so far? Have I gone all in?
(05:21):
Am I giving it everything I have? And I just thought,
you know what, I've got this idea of eating dog
food for thirty days that I haven't executed yet, and
when I get back, I need to do that. I
need to take it to the next level. And I
told my wife and she just kind of looked at
me and laughed and if you know, of course you
are she was in between. She thought it was great.
(05:42):
From a what are we willing to do for the
business and to show customers with care, but it had
definitely gotten the way of meal time because the family
is eating dinner, and I'm the biggest one of the family,
and so she typically counts on me to eat my share,
so there were a lot more leftovers. The house smelled
like cooked dog food for a month, and you know,
(06:04):
the breath the breath off also had the dog food
on it. And then when I got back to the office,
my marketing director just said, he's kind of he was
kind of in the mode of God, please don't do this,
because if it goes wrong and you end up in
the hospital, then I don't know how we recover from that.
And then told my brother and he's like, you know,
(06:25):
it's probably a good idea, but I'm I'm glad it's
not me, so go for it. Day two through four
I was pretty somber and wondering, how how am I
going to make it another twenty five to twenty eight days?
And what the heck did I just sign up for?
No seasoning, no sauces, no alcohol, no coffee. It was
it was pretty much dog food and water. Four or
five six days in, everyone was I was on board
(06:48):
and loving it, and customers had a great time with it.
It's just been a real fun process. It tastes like
you think it would. It doesn't smell great, and it
doesn't taste awesome. Dogs have a little bit different palette
than what we do, but you know, I'm glad they
like it. I have two yellow labs and one of
(07:09):
them is twelve and the other one's fourteen and a half.
They go nuts over the free stride. So dogs their
flavor profile. It comes from fat and protein, not specifically
like chicken or beef. They just they can taste the fat.
We've seen a huge increase online, I mean almost triple
the visitors to our website this January versus past. We've
(07:32):
had a lot more customers calling that just they wanted
to know more. And then our retailers that have independent
brick and mortar locations have said that people have come
in talking about it. So we're seeing a positive impact
from it. Essentially, we have to be as clean as
a human grade facility, and so the investment level that
(07:54):
has taken in the commitment it takes is as much
much higher than what it was years ago. We're not
necessarily charging a lot more for dog food, and so
we just have to be leaner and more efficient, and
as a smaller manufacturer that's competing against some global companies
that have that huge advertising marketing budget. Just trying to
(08:17):
be creative so that people know who we are is
it's getting harder and harder. We try to work with
independent and family owned businesses. That's just where we've spent
eighty seven years and we really like that environment and
working with those and then we also sell online direct
(08:37):
to consumer. We also do a fair amount of private label,
so if somebody wanted their own brand of dog food
to retreat, we'll make it for them as well. Our
website is Monstermilling dot com and it's Monster spelt like
the cheese and then Milling dot com. A lot of
dog food that's out there. It's made by candy companies
and cereal companies and it's not their main focus. It's
(09:00):
just another way to fill up a truck on the
way to the grocery store and try and maximize the
value to shareholders. And when we make a food, we
make it with a dog in mind, and so much
so that we won't feed your dog something that we
haven't eaten ourselves.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
And you've been listening to Mitch Felderhoff, and he's the
co owner of Munster Milling, a fourth generation, family owned
and operated animal food manufacture located in Munster, Texas. And
my goodness, he lost thirty pounds by the way going
on that little trial and learned a lot in my goodness,
sold a lot of dog food along the way. I
love that he said, young, hungry and ready to change
(09:38):
the world. That's how he described himself at that age.
And how did he want to change the world. He
wanted to change his world by keeping a family business
in a small town and employing fifty nine people. And that, folks,
that's changing the world. Mitch Felderhoff's story here on our
American Stories. If you have a small family business like this,
multi generation share the story with. My favorite is the
(10:01):
Steinway family story. The Germans back in the day had
guilds and they didn't think they needed another piano maker,
so Germany said, get out of dodge. America's gain was
Germany's loss, as the great piano manufacturer stays in the
family from multi generations Munster Milling mitchfelderhoff story here on
(10:22):
Our American Story
This is our American stories, and our next story is
about a family owned business. Mitch Felderhoff is the co
owner of Munster Milling, a fourth generation family owned and
operated animal food manufacturer. You might have seen Mitch in
the news recently because he decided to eat nothing but
the specialized dog food his company makes for thirty straight days.
(00:35):
It got our attention. Here's Mitch.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
My name is Mitch Felderhoff, and I'm one of the
fourth generation owners of Munster Milling Company. I grew up
in the business and as my parents were getting ready
to retire, they had considered selling the business, and my
brother and I didn't want to see that happened. So
we went to the bank and found a way to
came up with the money and purchase the business from them.
(01:04):
They were kind of reluctant to invest in. You know,
it's a big investment, and they had put thirty forty
years into the business, and I think they were kind
of ready to take a breath and take a break.
And you know, we were young, hungry and ready to
change the world. So we said, hey, we'll take the
gamble and we'll go do it. We had things that
we wanted to do a little bit differently than what
(01:25):
had been done in the past, and the easiest way
for us to do it was to take control of
the business. It was just regular standard kibble for the
most part, is what we made, and when we purchased it,
we wanted them to kind of change the way we
did things, and so we incorporated freeze ride into our
product lineup along with the ability to customize a single
(01:46):
bag of food. Actually, so now we can add bacon
fat or salmon oil to a single bag if we
wanted to. You know, our goal was to reduce carbohydrates
and pet food and make dog food different than what
a lot of people currently are and so we made
the move and put a freeze dryer in about a
year ago, which essentially is the ability to make astronaut
(02:06):
food for dogs. So we're taking raw food and pulling
the moisture out while it's frozen and essentially leaving just
raw organ meat that's shelf stable. So the way freeze
drying works that's different than kibble is you're taking raw
frozen meat and you stick it in this giant chamber
that looks kind of like a shipping container, probably weighs
(02:28):
about forty pounds, and it's stainless steel, and we pull
a vacuum on it so there's no more air in
there than there is an outer space. And then we
get it down to our negative sixty degrees fahrenheit, and
we heat the trays up to you anywhere between thirty
and forty degrees fahrenheit. And when you have that big
(02:52):
of a temperature difference in a vacuum, it causes a
process called sublimation where water goes from the ice form
to a vapor form. And so it's kind of like
watching dry ice sit on the table. You know, it
just kind of evaporates and you see what looks like
cold steam coming out of it. That's the process to
free strike, and the benefit to it is you don't
(03:12):
have to have a bunch of starches and sugars in
there to hold the product together. You know, it's still
in its quote unquote frozen state, but all the moisture
has been removed. Kibble. You have to heat it up
to you know, two hundred and ninety degrees, put a
lot of pressure on it, and then dry it in
an oven afterwards. And the free strike is such a delicate,
gentle process that if you've got a dog that has
(03:34):
stomach issues, allergies of any sort, this is almost a
full proof thing that you can be them. And so
the past four years has really been focused on how
do we remove carbohydrates and make food less inflammatory and
still be a major employer in a little town that
we grew up in. It's one of those what can
we do that Nestle and Mars can't, and they make
(03:57):
more kibble than anybody in the world. Dog obesity is
at a almost a crisis level, fifty four percent of
dogs or obese, and we thought, how can we combat that?
And so brother and I were just talking and said,
you know, it's it's hard to make a kibble that's
low enough carbohydrates to make a difference. And the only
(04:17):
way to really kind of push the envelope on it
is to start to incorporate more protein and vat via
freeze drying. So we're using beef, chicken, fish, elk and
just started using bison. So I came up with the
idea a couple of years ago when I walked into
a store and I just saw tons and tons of
(04:38):
marketing from these other companies, and I thought, I can't
compete with that, we don't have the bankroll to do it,
and we don't have the ability to write the checks.
But what can I do that can help get our
company out there and help us be noticed and kind
of get the point across that we care more than them.
And just kind of had the idea that, you know what,
(04:58):
I'm willing to need our dog food for thirty days only.
I don't think any of these other companies would be.
You know, for about two years, I just kicked it
around on maybe I should do it, maybe I shouldn't.
And then my wife and I were on our ten
year anniversary trip, and you know, you're just you're thinking,
and hey, I have I Have I done life the
way I wanted to so far? Have I gone all in?
(05:21):
Am I giving it everything I have? And I just thought,
you know what, I've got this idea of eating dog
food for thirty days that I haven't executed yet, and
when I get back, I need to do that. I
need to take it to the next level. And I
told my wife and she just kind of looked at
me and laughed and if you know, of course you
are she was in between. She thought it was great.
(05:42):
From a what are we willing to do for the
business and to show customers with care, but it had
definitely gotten the way of meal time because the family
is eating dinner, and I'm the biggest one of the family,
and so she typically counts on me to eat my share,
so there were a lot more leftovers. The house smelled
like cooked dog food for a month, and you know,
(06:04):
the breath the breath off also had the dog food
on it. And then when I got back to the office,
my marketing director just said, he's kind of he was
kind of in the mode of God, please don't do this,
because if it goes wrong and you end up in
the hospital, then I don't know how we recover from that.
And then told my brother and he's like, you know,
(06:25):
it's probably a good idea, but I'm I'm glad it's
not me, so go for it. Day two through four
I was pretty somber and wondering, how how am I
going to make it another twenty five to twenty eight days?
And what the heck did I just sign up for?
No seasoning, no sauces, no alcohol, no coffee. It was
it was pretty much dog food and water. Four or
five six days in, everyone was I was on board
(06:48):
and loving it, and customers had a great time with it.
It's just been a real fun process. It tastes like
you think it would. It doesn't smell great, and it
doesn't taste awesome. Dogs have a little bit different palette
than what we do, but you know, I'm glad they
like it. I have two yellow labs and one of
(07:09):
them is twelve and the other one's fourteen and a half.
They go nuts over the free stride. So dogs their
flavor profile. It comes from fat and protein, not specifically
like chicken or beef. They just they can taste the fat.
We've seen a huge increase online, I mean almost triple
the visitors to our website this January versus past. We've
(07:32):
had a lot more customers calling that just they wanted
to know more. And then our retailers that have independent
brick and mortar locations have said that people have come
in talking about it. So we're seeing a positive impact
from it. Essentially, we have to be as clean as
a human grade facility, and so the investment level that
(07:54):
has taken in the commitment it takes is as much
much higher than what it was years ago. We're not
necessarily charging a lot more for dog food, and so
we just have to be leaner and more efficient, and
as a smaller manufacturer that's competing against some global companies
that have that huge advertising marketing budget. Just trying to
(08:17):
be creative so that people know who we are is
it's getting harder and harder. We try to work with
independent and family owned businesses. That's just where we've spent
eighty seven years and we really like that environment and
working with those and then we also sell online direct
(08:37):
to consumer. We also do a fair amount of private label,
so if somebody wanted their own brand of dog food
to retreat, we'll make it for them as well. Our
website is Monstermilling dot com and it's Monster spelt like
the cheese and then Milling dot com. A lot of
dog food that's out there. It's made by candy companies
and cereal companies and it's not their main focus. It's
(09:00):
just another way to fill up a truck on the
way to the grocery store and try and maximize the
value to shareholders. And when we make a food, we
make it with a dog in mind, and so much
so that we won't feed your dog something that we
haven't eaten ourselves.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
And you've been listening to Mitch Felderhoff, and he's the
co owner of Munster Milling, a fourth generation, family owned
and operated animal food manufacture located in Munster, Texas. And
my goodness, he lost thirty pounds by the way going
on that little trial and learned a lot in my goodness,
sold a lot of dog food along the way. I
love that he said, young, hungry and ready to change
(09:38):
the world. That's how he described himself at that age.
And how did he want to change the world. He
wanted to change his world by keeping a family business
in a small town and employing fifty nine people. And that, folks,
that's changing the world. Mitch Felderhoff's story here on our
American Stories. If you have a small family business like this,
multi generation share the story with. My favorite is the
(10:01):
Steinway family story. The Germans back in the day had
guilds and they didn't think they needed another piano maker,
so Germany said, get out of dodge. America's gain was
Germany's loss, as the great piano manufacturer stays in the
family from multi generations Munster Milling mitchfelderhoff story here on
(10:22):
Our American Story
Host
Lee Habeeb
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