October 10, 2024 • 33 mins
Brandon White from Next Level Premium Pet Food joins Kolby today to talk about the history of Next Level, why both the quality and manufacturing process matter, and how to choose the right dog food for your hound.This may be more than you ever wanted to know about dog food but we found it fascinating.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the bear hunting magazine Hunt Cash. With me
Koby Moorehead, We're gonna nerd out on bears hunting and
the outdoors. We'll tell stories, talk biology, tactics, gear, and
the fight to protect the pursuits that we hold dear.
So grab your bino's, lace up your boots, load up
your barrels, and gather the hounds as we venture on
this journey together. So today I'm with Brandon White from
(00:42):
Next Level dog Food, And before we get into today's podcast,
we've been talking here a lot about all of our
buddies out in North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee and just
all the things going on out there, and we just
want to wish off them the best. And you know,
it's been really encouraging to see how the communities gathered
around each other out there and how it's just Appalachians
(01:06):
supporting Appalachians and then all the people that know them
and are just helping out the best they can. And
it's good to know that there's people on the ground
out there that you can trust to be responsible with
the things that they were sent. We were just talking
about how there's so many different organizations that pop up
that really are asking for this, or that you just
(01:29):
don't know who you can trust, especially with I mean,
even some of the rules coming out of that area
just are kind of kind of dumbfound you. It's been
really great to see how the communities rallied around each
other and just done a solid job of supporting each other.
So hats off to you guys. Today we're going to
(01:50):
talk about kind of the science behind dog food and
see what we can learn from just the production process
and lean on a lot of the knowledge that brand
and has. But first we want to find out some
of his background and some of the background behind Next Level. So, hey, Brennan,
going good, good, So give me some of your your background.
(02:13):
I know you're a diehard tree guy, a treehound guy feiler,
and uh, how you got involved with Next Level. And
before we get into that, I want to say that
the way that the way that I got connected with
you guys is uh is kind of not normal. My
dad lives in the same town like I'm from, East Texas,
(02:35):
where you guys are located your corporate headquarters and want
your production plant. And uh, my dad saw somebody come
in to the place that he was eating lunch that
had Next Level on the on their polo, and he's like,
they need to talk to my son. So my dad's
(02:57):
not pastful.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
East Texas. Well, I don't know too many bashful people
down there.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, so it's cool because like this actually come from uh,
this relationship come from just uh. I mean, it wasn't
like a cold call. It wasn't like, oh hey, check
out our media kid. It was like it was just
my dad being friendly.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah. I think he met our president, Hayden Hayden Fox,
that sounds right. Yeah, at a restaurant and Hayden called
me like, hey man, you need to talk to kids.
I think this is really a cool deal talk about
bear Hunt. Yeah, so you're our hand guy, go for it.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
No, we've we've really uh we've really enjoyed starting to
get to know you. Guys are still pretty early, but
we're looking forward to getting up there and touring the facility.
But yeah, let's go ahead and dive into it. Me
some of your I'm really interested in your background because
the more that we talked, the over the phone or
even here this morning, it's it's clear that you have
(03:56):
a lot of depth to your to your helm background.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, you know, I'm I tell everybody, I pay taxes
in Southwest Missouri, but I live in a Hilton hotel
all day in most of the time. Yeah, I traveled
so much. But uh, my family growing up in Southwest Missouri,
my uncle's all coon hunters, you know, had coonhounds and
and uh on one side of the family. The other
side of the family, you know, they coon hunters. It
(04:21):
was just something we always had, always had coon hounds
or beagles or something. And on my mom's side they
were blue tick folks. And on my dad's side, they
were black and tans.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Some of your listeners may know. I remember a general
named Harold Bailey had Bailey's black and tans and he
won the world way back in the seventies. But I
just landed with blue ticks, and I thought they were
kind of cool. You know. Everybody that where I lived
had a lot of them, had walkers, you know, tream walkers,
which are good, good hounds, and yeah, I just wanted
something a little different, and it was a blue tick,
you know. And yeah, the joke is I can hunt
(04:51):
my forty acres all night long and not worry about
getting out of pocket. But uh, you know, I graduated
high school back in uh from age You're back in
nineteen eighty nine, went to the military, served in the
army for eight years, got out and went to work
driving a truck actually for a which is now called
FedEx Freight, used to be American Freightways out of Harrison, Arkansas.
(05:15):
And you know, had had a pretty good hounder. I
thought he was pretty good, and we won a little bit,
and I was just enough of a redneck ram, just
enough of redneck that won a bigger event. And dog
would come say, man, when you were our hat, you know,
put our logo on your ads, we gonna give me,
you know, how can I turn this in to help
pay my expenses? And anyway, this particular company, we worked
(05:39):
out a deal and they were gonna quote unquote sponsored me.
But side note, nobody sponsors anybody. Yeah, in the doctor world,
they're gonna get something out of it too. But you know,
I got some things. We worked some things out, which
just kind of introduced me into the pet food sales.
I thought, that's pretty cool. This guy's getting paid to go.
He's a bird dog, got to go to bird dog
(05:59):
hunts and honey events and trade shows. And that's all
he does. And I made a joke to him one time.
I said, I like to have your job. And I
had a pretty good job, I thought, you know, or
did at FedEx, and he said, be careful what you
wish for. And then a few months later FedEx offered
a buyout and I was thirty nine years old, married
(06:20):
and had two kids, and that company offered me a
full time job as a field sales rep. I said, man,
this is perfect. I can go do well I always
wanted and get paid. And so I took a leap
of faith, and man, that was an education I learned
at that point on to get everything in writing. Don't
agree to nothing that's in writing. Yeah, but uh, that
was kind of my my introduction to pet food sales.
(06:42):
And then I went to work for a whostsale distributor
where you know, as manufacturers, we sell to hostel distributors
who sell to retailers you know, and do online to consumers.
So I fell in love with it. I was ordered
for a distributor out of out of Rhode Island actually,
and I covered Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska, and that's where
I met Scott Glover and Antoine album It's the guys
(07:05):
that owned US pet Food Next Level. At the time,
they were the owners of Mid America Pet Food. Some
of you folks may know that they were the original
greadors and original owners of Mid America, which made Victor
dog Food. At the time, that's where I met those guys. Man,
we just hit it off like brothers, you know, just
just a perfect for perfect connection. They offered me a job,
(07:27):
and I glad they took it, and no looking back,
and be with those guys now since about twenty thirteen,
and just super great people and know their families very well.
And I'll follow those guys anywhere. But that you sold,
you know, they had had been America Victor dog Food
had that company sold it in twenty twenty had a
two year non compete and they couldn't hire any of
(07:49):
us directly because they're non compete. So I had to
go somewhere else for a while and then come back
with them in the fall of twenty twenty one, and
they were just starting to break ground on what's now
called US pet Food, our plant there on Highway two
seventy one south of Mount Pleasant, And we have two brands.
Next Level is one of our brands are our super
premium brand. Then another one called Stratus, which is more
(08:10):
of an economy brand, feeds very well but just a
little bit easier on the pocketbook. But that's our two brands.
And during our non compete there for a little bit,
I was able to sell supplements, So I traveled east
coast from Florida selling supplements, and then we launched Next
Level in September of twenty twenty three. It just took
(08:31):
off like a rocket ship. And you know we mentioned earlier,
sales is all about relationships, and there's lots of different
dog free brands that there are people to choose from.
You know, there's only thirty five forty manufacturers in the
United States, but yet there's five thousand different brands. And
some of the brands that we know, some people know,
they't even they don't even own their own manufacturing plant.
(08:51):
They're paying somebody else to make it for them. That's
one of the things that gives us a little different
little leg ups. We own our own plant, we built it.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah, I really like it. Whenever someone finds success inside
of a lane and then there's got to be something
inside of them and make someone want to go back
and do that. Same thing again.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
You know passion These guys are so passionate.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
You know they come from from the feed meal industry.
A little bit. How that those guys kind of their
relationship started. People often wonder how how did it? How
did it start? You know, tell us about it because
we're very transparent.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
You know, Antoine went to college Scott. Scott's family on
the feed meal there. Whoever feeds your dad probably knows
members at brack in the old days. And uh, Scott
went to college and then he bought a feed meal
in Little Rock, Arkansas, te Bolt Milling or T Square Milling,
and that's where he met Antoine. Hired Antoine to help
him run that, and then that fell apart. They had
(09:52):
to they got a fire or something. Anyway, Scott moved
to northeast and Antoine back to southern Arkansas doing lands
aping and excavating and whatnot. And Scott come back and
he wanted to build a female his parents were retiring.
He wanted to build a dog food plant and just
a little four state multi regional dog food plant. He
called Dan Twine up still had his phone number. Antoine
(10:15):
moved to Northeast, Texas and they built men America pet
food from the ground up and jumped in a car,
went around and didn't come home till they sold the
first truck of dog food. And they got it done,
and that was in two thousand and eight, two thousand
and seven, two thousand and eight, and minute just word
of mouth. The product fed so well, just took off
(10:36):
its word of mouth. And those guys took a lot
of their knowledge they have from the dairy industry and
applied it to dog food. We feel like they kind
of set the bar down gut health and pet food.
A lot of people talk about having prebodics probotics in
their food, but it's just a tag what do you
call a tag dress, just a little pixie dust so
you can have it on the tags that looks good. Well,
(10:56):
these guys really used the stuff on it, and you
can tell the big difference in the digestion and how
the dog performed and gut health. So that kind of
changed the pet food world. People have to start following suit,
you know, because you don't want to feed the dog
food and then go back out to the kennel or
in your house whatever and have a big, big mess,
you know, or land mines out in your yard so
they're not digesting you that. It took what we learned
(11:20):
from that venture and even improved on even more to
take it to quote unquote the next level. Yeah, and
some of the things that we've learned, you know, house
they're getting to be too much calcium. Some people think
you got to have calcium.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Well you do.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Got to have calcium. There's a minimum of one point
one percent and a maximum of no more than two
point five percent in a dog food. You know, too
much calcium causes growth deficiencies, to cause the bones to
get a little walking and it really blocks the dog's
ability to absorb zinc. And you need zinc for a
lot of things. Yeah, number one skin and coat, but
just whole body health. You got to have zinc in
(11:50):
your diet. And if you can't, if you can't absorb that,
if it's getting blocked by too much calcium, you're not
getting no benefit of it. So you'll notice that in
your skin and coat. You know, I spend a lot
of time in studying and the hired doctor George Collins
on nutritionness out of Saint Louis. Been in the industry
for years and worked for all the big major companies
and just focus on keeping the protein levels high higher
(12:13):
and then the calium levels low. And there's ways to
do that with with you know, using the whole hidr
lifed chicken, a little devil of blood and meal and
so on and so forth, and buying a quality premium
product that we use. People some manufacturers are buying a
cheaper meat meal and they're getting more bones and ash,
and that's why the costminers are so high. But the
(12:35):
government says no more than two point five percent and
in a back of dog food. So yeah, big, big difference.
And you know, these guys just spend a lot of
time and a lot of money h studying it and
they do have a passion for it. But they take
took their knowledge from the real feed meal time and
put it in. It's not just an investment for them.
They're not just throwing money in it and spending a
wheel hope that lands on jackpot. That's not what they're with.
(12:59):
Their purpose is and they really do make believe in
and have a passion for animal health. Yeah, and we
believe we're the best nutritional value on the market. Are
we the cheapest though? Are we the most expensive? Lord?
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Though?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
But nutritionally, we're the best value on the market and
in our state of the art facility they built. You
can go back on the Facebook page you can see
a video Scott put out back in April. He's gets
a whole tour. Not I don't know if any other
pet food companies ever done that. Just open the doors,
wide open, video and go through video the whole thing
in the public size that for anybody to go look at.
I've been to a lot of pet food plants and
(13:33):
most of them you have to leave your phone in
your vehicle and sign an NBA before you can come
inside it. Ours is wide open. Not wide open that
they just came off the street and walk in it.
But you know, if you've got business to tend with us,
you know, basically wide open because they have to video
on Facebook. But it's pretty pretty neat, you know. We
get your We have a lab so when the trucks
come in our facility, they weigh in and then they
(13:56):
go to a lab. Truck drivers get out and they
go into a breaker in the bottom of the lab our.
Lab techs come out probe the trucks take it inside
and we've got a machine that's a wet chemistry machine
and they can test for anything. We know exactly what
cowsum levels are, we know the peroxide values, how old
the product is, test for salmonilla, all that, all that stuff.
(14:19):
We can test for it, and if it's good, it
moves into the receiving pit of us. No good to
turn around, they leave and uh so our our suppliers
who we buy our products from, no, we're going to
do that. So they send us good product. They're not
going to take the time and sending us a product
that's not any good knowing we're going to reject it.
Then they got to try to sell somebody else or
get do something else with it. So we get we
get premium product, and the grains come in, they go
(14:40):
to the to the grain side, and negga n loaded
and the silos. Any of the meat meals that we use,
like a beef meal, chicken meal, portmeal, fish meal goes
inside and we can receive four trucks an hour. Well
why does that matter? Because if you can only receive
one truck an hour, that's all you can make. And
so we can receive four trucks an hour. So somebody
plays the truck truck loload order today. You know, day's Wednesday.
(15:02):
We can deliver it to my Monday, you know, so
we can get it made pretty quick because of the way
they design this facility, Yeah, built in scalability.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
And so they come into the to the receiving pit,
receive the meals, and all that stuff goes into big,
big storage towers. If you look at the plant's like
a big stack in the air, but it's all different
storage bins. And then when we're going to make a
we're going to run a formula and augusts mixed together
into batching and then all of that product goes in
you know, their rices, the grains and the meat meals
all go into a hammer meal if you know what
(15:32):
a hammer meal if you don't think about a cylinder
or a coffee can, so to speak, with a rod
through it and a bunch of little hammers on the
inside of its spinning real fast. So it just crushes
it all up into a powder. And we grind that
so much where it goes through a three sixty fourth
screen has to fall through the three sixty four so
it's almost like a real fine powder. Yeah, And it
goes from that into the extruder extruders that if you
(15:55):
want to call it an oven or cooking process, it's
where it gets extruded. So they take steam and pressure
into this extruder. So if you look at the carbohydrates
under a microscope our kibble, it pops it like a
like a piece of popcorn kernel, and then it streets
out into a kibble. The knives cut it into a
kibble and that goes up pneumatically over into the dryer,
and so on and so forth. But the unique thing
(16:17):
about that three sixty four screen is we're not so
much worried about how many tons can we make per hour?
Right in a pet food manufacturing plant, the more tongs
you can produce an hour, the more money you're gonna make.
You know, tons per our tons p hour. We slow
our down a little bit. We want quality more than quantity,
so we slow our ours cooking process, so to speak, down,
(16:38):
grind a little bit longer to get a finer it's
just going to help with digestibility. If you take a
handful of popcorn kernels just right of the bag or
the jar and you swallow them, you're gonna see them again,
and you're gonna have a belly ache. We all know
that about corn, right, you pop them in the popcorn,
you never see that again. You digest it. Right. So
with the carbohydrates, we pop all those really well, we're
(17:02):
gonna get a good digest. We know they're gonna get
a digest and the dog is gonna be a good
a lot of use of the product. So it goes
over in our in our facility kind of like a
hall of separation, and it goes from the extruder over
to the dryer through air. You show up shot over
in the in the pipeline. That's a break right there.
If there's any contamination salmonella, that's gonna be on the
(17:23):
raw side. So the people who work on the on
the feed meal side, so to speak, the extruder and
all the receiving pits there, they never intermingle with the
people on the post cook side. They have different break rooms,
different time clocks. They see each other. They come to work,
and they see each other they leave. They don't intermingle
during the day. That's how you control food safety contamination
one way. So it goes over into the dryer, comes
(17:44):
in about twenty percent moreture. We drive down to about
eight percent and then it goes into the fat coder
cooler and over into the backing uh, and it gets
bagged up into the warehouse. It's pretty simple, but slow
and steady wins their race every time. Yeah, buying quality ingredients.
If we buy quality ingredients, we can produce a quality kibble.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah. And I think that it's just really clear while
you're talking the how matters, you know. And I think
having that level of transparency and being able to I
mean like, I mean, it's not like you're a scientist
or like a nutritionist in there doing the work, but
I mean they're share It sounds like they're sharing most everything,
(18:27):
even with the sales guy, you know, the rep, the
the guy that's out there interacting with people. And uh.
I think the a company that's willing to be transparent.
And I like the fact that there's there's two two owners,
you know. Also the fact that they've worked together for
so long, like kind of proves that they trust each other.
(18:47):
And they must be some pretty good old boys. They're
good and shared passions.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
You know, they're there their family, you know, family minded
family meaning and we're all one big family work here,
and we've all worked with them in the past and and.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Uh, so every back comes with a little bit of family.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Absolutely exactly right, you know it. Uh, it's it's just
not a big, big capital venture. You know, there's some
brand there's some good brands out there, but they're owned
by big, big corporations and it's just you know, there's
not much passion into it. You know a lot of marketing.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Yeah, it seems like there's a lot more bioavailability inside
of the product you guys are putting out versus other.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Absolutely, there's there's there's different forms of minerals you can get.
You can get rock form, or you can get organic.
We use organic for for example. UH, selenium is a
great product. It's great. They're using selenium to slow down
the aging process with Alzheimer's patients. There's fighting cancers that
selenium will help increase the egg count and the females
(19:48):
burn counting the males. UH slows down oxidation. The rock
form will be a sodium selenite or a sodium sellingate. Uh.
A lot of pet food companies use that. And if
you look look at that up it's it's has to humans.
It comes in a box with skull and crossbones on it.
We use cellplex, a form of selenium yeast, and it
comes from all Tech over in Lexington, Kentucky area. It
(20:12):
come right up through the ground. It's it's organic, there's
free right in the bloodstream, so they get full full
use of that product. Is it costs a little bit
more money, but the benefits out weigh the negatives, so
it's worth spending a little bit extra more money. We
trademark the term Sciences in the bag and we believe
(20:32):
that you know, you'll have some brands that advertised, oh,
for skin and coat for gut health, Well, all of
ours are for skinning coat and gut health, every one
of them. Yeah, And we've got twelve formulas now and
for more coming out by the end of the year,
so we'll have sixteen formulas by the end of the year.
And every one of the war formulas are about gut health.
And then we have some that are more a little
bit specific for skinning coat, and we have some with
(20:54):
lucosamin and androit and the hips and joints, and there's
a lot of foods that advertise that they use lucosamin
and android, but if you look at it, against's an
tag dress three hundred milligrams. We're using eight hundred and
fifty to nine hundred milligrams you know per kilogram in
the back. So that's therapeutical levels for skin and coat
or for the hips and joint. And why why would
does hown guys care about that? Well, to think about it,
how many times have you took your dogs out and
(21:16):
hunting and you go get them out of the dog
box and you get home or the next morning you
see them come calling down the dog out, stoved up
and they're just stiff. Well, the coastman, you're great and
will help help with that. Yeah, And so it helps
to recovery a lot faster.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, maybe less trips to.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
The absolutely absolutely. And when you're hunting, you know, multiple
nights a week or multiple days a week and hunting hard,
you got to keep those dogs fresh, you know, and
keep them feeling good. I tell people, you know, we
can survive, you know, we can survive off anything. We can.
Here at this hotel, they've got a breakfast down there
and it any very good one. It's that stuff that's
(21:52):
bought frozen and you throw it to the microwave. When
you eat it, you can eat it and you can survive.
You can live off that, but it's not very nutritious
for you. We can go out to night and go
to the Chinese buffet or a Mexican Mexican place, and
we can eat all the food we want. We can
drink tequila and beer all night long and get up
tomorrow and go build fence. But I promise you we're
gonna hit our thumb. We're gonna we're gonna defence. It
is gonna be a little crooked. Something's gonna be off. But
(22:13):
if we'll drink ice water, ice tea and eat, you know,
a good clean meal steak, chicken, breast, pork chops or whatever,
and get a good night's sleep, well we'll have less
mistakes tomorrow. We work same way with these With these hounds,
whether you're competition hunting or just pleasure hunting, you want
them their minds sharp and feeling good, and they're gonna
perform for a lot better. And in the big, the
(22:34):
big tonehound events. You know, the difference between going home
and a brand new truck, or you know twenty thousand
and thirty thousand dollars could be five seconds, and the
difference between five seconds could be how you feel you know,
a decision you make. So no, no dog food is
gonna make your dog a world champion. Uh, but it
could sure enough hell or hurt you.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
I mean, I can see that difference even inside of
me right now. Like I so, my wife and I
we've we've cleaned up what we've been eating and we're
doing like a reset diet. We're doing carnivore and so
it's all like animal products is all we're eating, Like
you know, meat and you know, some dairy and stuff.
We're doing a little dirty carnivore. But yeah, but I
(23:18):
can tell you, like just with for one, the amount
of waste that my body gives off is nothing compared
to what it was before when I was eating eating
a lot of wider things. It's clear that my body
is designed to do something with that nutrition, that meat
to where it's like I feel better, I wake up
(23:42):
and I don't have a mental fog. There's there's a
lot of times before with just like a normal diet
that I would uh it would take me a while
to shake a fog out out of my brain. I
wouldn't be as sharp. And then my energy levels are
more sustained throughout the day and I can't help but
think that it would be that way inside of inside
(24:02):
of dog food too.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Absolutely, you know, dog really no different than us. Yeah,
it does make a big, big difference in what you
feed your dog and how they perform. And uh, you
know you can you can buy cheaper dog foods out
there and you'll feed two or three times more. You know.
I was talking to a guy had a stock dog
trial and he said, I'm not I'm not saying this
just because you're here. You said, but since I've started
feeding your dog food, I went from buying eight bags
(24:25):
a month to five the same amount of dogs. And
that's the savings right there. It may cost a little
bit more per bag, but your overall cost per day
feeding is going well. Well.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Even eating this carnivore diet, I'm not hungry near as much.
I eat a lot less volume wise, I eat what
I need. And uh yeah, I could see that. The
last time that I went and looked through a store
to try to pick out a new pet food and
new dog food, I was overwhelmed with all the options.
(24:55):
I didn't know, like what should I feed my dog?
So talk about how some one should think whenever they're
going in to choose one of the formulas that you
guys have.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
The fattest fuel, protein builds muscle. Some people have it wrong.
They think, well, I got to feed a thirty twenty
or a thirty five twenty five protein and fat. That
protein and high protein, you're gonna give my dog a
lot of hoodre You're gonna really pump them up. No,
that's not true. It's the fat, fattest fuel. Protein builds
muscle and help to recover. And a dog can only
really process thirty percent, no more than thirty percent protein anyway.
(25:27):
So if you're feeding your dog. When we used to
have one in prior, like we had a forty two
percent protein to hot, we didn't really know. But we
know now that they're gonna most that's gonna be excreted
through the year. You know, if you get over thirty percent,
they really can't process that anyway. So think about your
dog's at activity level and then they choose your protein
and fat. You know, if if you're hunting a couple
(25:48):
of nights a week, you can probably get away. Just
find a twenty four to twelve or twenty six eighteen.
Twenty six eighteen is a really good all around you know,
we're coming in the fall of the year, are getting colder.
Dog's gonna eat more to help stay warmer. They're gonna
burn more calories. So if you feed a twenty four
to twenty all high energies, not all, but most of
(26:09):
all the high energies you ever see, there are twenty
four twenty four percent protein, twenty percent fat, and then
use it goes from there to a thirty twenty more
a little more protein if you need it. The bully
guys and then we love the bully guys and they
love our food, but they would feed a fifty percent
protein diet if they could, just because they think they're
gotta have it to get them dog really popped their
muscles out of and again they can't process that much
(26:30):
protein anyway.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
It's probably bad on the kidneys too, it.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Is, you know, high protein does not cause kidney problems.
It is causing them to work. You excrete all that protein.
But if your dog is born or it already has
a kidney problem, too much protein could be deadly.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
So they might have to drink a lot more water.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yes, and you know, too much phosphorus, and that comes
with buying too much ash in your diet. I think
about when I talked earlier about too much calcium, because
they're getting buying too much bone and ash. Well, that's
causing too much phosphorus. Is a direct correlation to the
kidney disease, which is the nuber one kill dogs anyway,
and there is there is some science to it. But
just come on your dog's activity level. So a lot
of guys in the winter time, they'll feed a twenty
four to twenty or thirty twenty in the wintertime. In
(27:09):
the summer time, when they're not hunting much nothing, they'll
feed more of a maintenance or a norse normally active,
lower protein, lower fat dog food. But if you're hunting
a year round hard, you know, you might feed at
twenty six eighteen and then just feed a little bit
more in the wintertime. You see so many things out there,
there's so much marketing. I've sold a lot of dog
food in my life, but I have never ever sold
(27:30):
a bag of dog food to a dog. I've always
sold it to the dog's owner, To a person, A
lot of emotion goes into buying dog food. You know, hey,
that'll boy, give me a couple of hats. I better
try his dog food. You know that doesn't make no
sense to me. But know exactly what you're buying, and
know what your dog need is. There's no need in
(27:51):
feeding the high protein, high fat diet. If you don't
need that, it's just a waste. And when it talks
about calories per cup, you know calories. We know that
you need a higher You got a performance dog, I
need to fight feed higher calories. Everybody should measure their
cakews per cup the same way. You take this aight
downce coffee cup right here, you scoop up your kibble,
(28:11):
you weigh it out. There's a mathematical formulation you do
to get your cake cows. If you take that same cup,
then that kibble, then you grind it. Well, now you've
got more room. Dad's more so it looks like it's
more dense, and it's not. Uh So. Some people will
advertise real high cake cows and they may be fibbing
a little. You know, I'm back early in the days.
I've talked people, so how you can feed your X
number of how many cups a day are you feeding?
(28:32):
I just feed one or two cups of dog foo today?
Ain't no way. Let me see your dog, let me
see your cup. Well, then they ring you McDonald's thirty
two ounce cup. I'm like, no, man, a cup eight
ounces as a cup because I was the same way
early on. I didn't know. Yeah, I used the coffe again,
I feed one can of day how much foods that can?
And I didn't know? Or I use an automatic feeder
A lot of us, a lot of us. How guys
(28:52):
do that too, And there's nothing wrong with that, but
you need to check on it. You know, how's the
dog talk to you? Some people think they actually do
talk to you that, but through their food consumption, through
their input and their output and how they perform is
how they talk to you. Yeah, you need to so
much water they're drink and how much food drinking and
all that stuff?
Speaker 1 (29:10):
So well, great, Well, where can guys fine? Next level?
I mean, you guys are still pretty early as far
as getting on the shelves. It sounds like from what
late twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yeah, it's it's amazing how fast it is grown. Since
we started last year a bout a year. At twelve
months now, we're just close to twenty five hundred retailers
across the country. We're we're We've had retailers in every
state in the United States. You can find us go
to our website and put in your zip code and
it'll populate but stores around you, and that's getting updated daily.
(29:43):
I had two new stores this morning, one in Taaloqa, Oklahoma,
and one in Glenwood, Arkansas. But you can also go
to Chewy. We're on Chewy now Chewy dot com. Okay, cool,
we're on there. Amazon, our website, you can we're up
our website. But there's plenty places around and it's growing.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
If you've got an interest in it and you can't
find it, and you can go to info at uspetfood
dot com or our website. It's into an email and
they'll get hold of one on US reps. You email
me directly, be White at uspetfood dot com, look me
up on Facebook. I'm not hard to find. We're always
available at that telephone and there's a few minutes we've
been talking. It's gone off several times already. But that's
(30:24):
part of the job, and it's part I.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Like, yeah, yeah, I mean, wherever you buy your dog food,
you might mention it to them too. I saw it
pop up at the local farmers co op. How would
people stay up with Next Level because I mean, you
guys are expanding rapidly right now, and I'm sure there's
a lot of exciting things that you guys are getting
involved in.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yeah, just you know, our Facebook page is the best
way to really follow. You know, we're active. We do
a lot of dog trials. You know, we've sponsored several
coon hunting events and stock dog events, bully dog shows
and the fancy a case type dog shows, and we're
always looking for places to partner and be a part
of it in it's just gotta be a good a
(31:05):
good fit for both of us. But we're out and
about all the time, you know, but looking forward to
growing more and more. And uh uh, it's exciting to
see the difference that makes you know our product. It's
it's always cool to see those videos or those pictures
you know, before and after. You know, people you can't
buy one bag of dog food and see see a difference.
(31:27):
You're going to see a difference on ours pretty quick.
In the in the stewl volume, if you if you
buy a bag of Next Level of dog food, put
it on that dog and that dog only or that
only feed. Next Level no trees on nothing for thirty days,
you will see a difference, but usually it takes a
couple of months or let's see a big, big, big difference.
But some folks, you know, they they want to see
(31:48):
overnight success. And you can on some things, uh and digestion,
on urs, you can. Most dog foods you got to take.
You need to take seven to ten days to do
a transition ours. You know, you could probably go ahead
and switch, yeah and not have no problem.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
But that's great.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
It's always best to take a couple of days, but
I don't. I always do a coult switch. If you
want to see the value of dog food, to switch
it overnight, see what happens.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Yeah, yeah, well cool, Well thanks Brandon, you bet. Yeah,
but uh, I really am looking forward to going and
checking out the setup down here in Mount Pleasant.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Yeah, I'm excited. You've had you guys come down. Have
you come down and go through it? I know they
those guys like to give tours and see how it's made.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
But I'm looking forward to going to some some bear
trials and I want to go bear hunting with some hounds. Yeah.
So yeah, well I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
I might have some some ideas well. Cool. Well, we'll
catch you next time.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
I better take care.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Thank you for listening. The Bear Hunting Magazine hund Cast
is recorded by a bear hunting magazine and produced by
Mountain Gravity Media. Be sure leave us a five star
review on iTunes and keep guarding the cake
Welcome to the bear hunting magazine Hunt Cash. With me
Koby Moorehead, We're gonna nerd out on bears hunting and
the outdoors. We'll tell stories, talk biology, tactics, gear, and
the fight to protect the pursuits that we hold dear.
So grab your bino's, lace up your boots, load up
your barrels, and gather the hounds as we venture on
this journey together. So today I'm with Brandon White from
(00:42):
Next Level dog Food, And before we get into today's podcast,
we've been talking here a lot about all of our
buddies out in North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee and just
all the things going on out there, and we just
want to wish off them the best. And you know,
it's been really encouraging to see how the communities gathered
around each other out there and how it's just Appalachians
(01:06):
supporting Appalachians and then all the people that know them
and are just helping out the best they can. And
it's good to know that there's people on the ground
out there that you can trust to be responsible with
the things that they were sent. We were just talking
about how there's so many different organizations that pop up
that really are asking for this, or that you just
(01:29):
don't know who you can trust, especially with I mean,
even some of the rules coming out of that area
just are kind of kind of dumbfound you. It's been
really great to see how the communities rallied around each
other and just done a solid job of supporting each other.
So hats off to you guys. Today we're going to
(01:50):
talk about kind of the science behind dog food and
see what we can learn from just the production process
and lean on a lot of the knowledge that brand
and has. But first we want to find out some
of his background and some of the background behind Next Level. So, hey, Brennan,
going good, good, So give me some of your your background.
(02:13):
I know you're a diehard tree guy, a treehound guy feiler,
and uh, how you got involved with Next Level. And
before we get into that, I want to say that
the way that the way that I got connected with
you guys is uh is kind of not normal. My
dad lives in the same town like I'm from, East Texas,
(02:35):
where you guys are located your corporate headquarters and want
your production plant. And uh, my dad saw somebody come
in to the place that he was eating lunch that
had Next Level on the on their polo, and he's like,
they need to talk to my son. So my dad's
(02:57):
not pastful.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
East Texas. Well, I don't know too many bashful people
down there.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, so it's cool because like this actually come from uh,
this relationship come from just uh. I mean, it wasn't
like a cold call. It wasn't like, oh hey, check
out our media kid. It was like it was just
my dad being friendly.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah. I think he met our president, Hayden Hayden Fox,
that sounds right. Yeah, at a restaurant and Hayden called
me like, hey man, you need to talk to kids.
I think this is really a cool deal talk about
bear Hunt. Yeah, so you're our hand guy, go for it.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
No, we've we've really uh we've really enjoyed starting to
get to know you. Guys are still pretty early, but
we're looking forward to getting up there and touring the facility.
But yeah, let's go ahead and dive into it. Me
some of your I'm really interested in your background because
the more that we talked, the over the phone or
even here this morning, it's it's clear that you have
(03:56):
a lot of depth to your to your helm background.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, you know, I'm I tell everybody, I pay taxes
in Southwest Missouri, but I live in a Hilton hotel
all day in most of the time. Yeah, I traveled
so much. But uh, my family growing up in Southwest Missouri,
my uncle's all coon hunters, you know, had coonhounds and
and uh on one side of the family. The other
side of the family, you know, they coon hunters. It
(04:21):
was just something we always had, always had coon hounds
or beagles or something. And on my mom's side they
were blue tick folks. And on my dad's side, they
were black and tans.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Some of your listeners may know. I remember a general
named Harold Bailey had Bailey's black and tans and he
won the world way back in the seventies. But I
just landed with blue ticks, and I thought they were
kind of cool. You know. Everybody that where I lived
had a lot of them, had walkers, you know, tream walkers,
which are good, good hounds, and yeah, I just wanted
something a little different, and it was a blue tick,
you know. And yeah, the joke is I can hunt
(04:51):
my forty acres all night long and not worry about
getting out of pocket. But uh, you know, I graduated
high school back in uh from age You're back in
nineteen eighty nine, went to the military, served in the
army for eight years, got out and went to work
driving a truck actually for a which is now called
FedEx Freight, used to be American Freightways out of Harrison, Arkansas.
(05:15):
And you know, had had a pretty good hounder. I
thought he was pretty good, and we won a little bit,
and I was just enough of a redneck ram, just
enough of redneck that won a bigger event. And dog
would come say, man, when you were our hat, you know,
put our logo on your ads, we gonna give me,
you know, how can I turn this in to help
pay my expenses? And anyway, this particular company, we worked
(05:39):
out a deal and they were gonna quote unquote sponsored me.
But side note, nobody sponsors anybody. Yeah, in the doctor world,
they're gonna get something out of it too. But you know,
I got some things. We worked some things out, which
just kind of introduced me into the pet food sales.
I thought, that's pretty cool. This guy's getting paid to go.
He's a bird dog, got to go to bird dog
(05:59):
hunts and honey events and trade shows. And that's all
he does. And I made a joke to him one time.
I said, I like to have your job. And I
had a pretty good job, I thought, you know, or
did at FedEx, and he said, be careful what you
wish for. And then a few months later FedEx offered
a buyout and I was thirty nine years old, married
(06:20):
and had two kids, and that company offered me a
full time job as a field sales rep. I said, man,
this is perfect. I can go do well I always
wanted and get paid. And so I took a leap
of faith, and man, that was an education I learned
at that point on to get everything in writing. Don't
agree to nothing that's in writing. Yeah, but uh, that
was kind of my my introduction to pet food sales.
(06:42):
And then I went to work for a whostsale distributor
where you know, as manufacturers, we sell to hostel distributors
who sell to retailers you know, and do online to consumers.
So I fell in love with it. I was ordered
for a distributor out of out of Rhode Island actually,
and I covered Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska, and that's where
I met Scott Glover and Antoine album It's the guys
(07:05):
that owned US pet Food Next Level. At the time,
they were the owners of Mid America Pet Food. Some
of you folks may know that they were the original
greadors and original owners of Mid America, which made Victor
dog Food. At the time, that's where I met those guys. Man,
we just hit it off like brothers, you know, just
just a perfect for perfect connection. They offered me a job,
(07:27):
and I glad they took it, and no looking back,
and be with those guys now since about twenty thirteen,
and just super great people and know their families very well.
And I'll follow those guys anywhere. But that you sold,
you know, they had had been America Victor dog Food
had that company sold it in twenty twenty had a
two year non compete and they couldn't hire any of
(07:49):
us directly because they're non compete. So I had to
go somewhere else for a while and then come back
with them in the fall of twenty twenty one, and
they were just starting to break ground on what's now
called US pet Food, our plant there on Highway two
seventy one south of Mount Pleasant, And we have two brands.
Next Level is one of our brands are our super
premium brand. Then another one called Stratus, which is more
(08:10):
of an economy brand, feeds very well but just a
little bit easier on the pocketbook. But that's our two brands.
And during our non compete there for a little bit,
I was able to sell supplements, So I traveled east
coast from Florida selling supplements, and then we launched Next
Level in September of twenty twenty three. It just took
(08:31):
off like a rocket ship. And you know we mentioned earlier,
sales is all about relationships, and there's lots of different
dog free brands that there are people to choose from.
You know, there's only thirty five forty manufacturers in the
United States, but yet there's five thousand different brands. And
some of the brands that we know, some people know,
they't even they don't even own their own manufacturing plant.
(08:51):
They're paying somebody else to make it for them. That's
one of the things that gives us a little different
little leg ups. We own our own plant, we built it.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah, I really like it. Whenever someone finds success inside
of a lane and then there's got to be something
inside of them and make someone want to go back
and do that. Same thing again.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
You know passion These guys are so passionate.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
You know they come from from the feed meal industry.
A little bit. How that those guys kind of their
relationship started. People often wonder how how did it? How
did it start? You know, tell us about it because
we're very transparent.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
You know, Antoine went to college Scott. Scott's family on
the feed meal there. Whoever feeds your dad probably knows
members at brack in the old days. And uh, Scott
went to college and then he bought a feed meal
in Little Rock, Arkansas, te Bolt Milling or T Square Milling,
and that's where he met Antoine. Hired Antoine to help
him run that, and then that fell apart. They had
(09:52):
to they got a fire or something. Anyway, Scott moved
to northeast and Antoine back to southern Arkansas doing lands
aping and excavating and whatnot. And Scott come back and
he wanted to build a female his parents were retiring.
He wanted to build a dog food plant and just
a little four state multi regional dog food plant. He
called Dan Twine up still had his phone number. Antoine
(10:15):
moved to Northeast, Texas and they built men America pet
food from the ground up and jumped in a car,
went around and didn't come home till they sold the
first truck of dog food. And they got it done,
and that was in two thousand and eight, two thousand
and seven, two thousand and eight, and minute just word
of mouth. The product fed so well, just took off
(10:36):
its word of mouth. And those guys took a lot
of their knowledge they have from the dairy industry and
applied it to dog food. We feel like they kind
of set the bar down gut health and pet food.
A lot of people talk about having prebodics probotics in
their food, but it's just a tag what do you
call a tag dress, just a little pixie dust so
you can have it on the tags that looks good. Well,
(10:56):
these guys really used the stuff on it, and you
can tell the big difference in the digestion and how
the dog performed and gut health. So that kind of
changed the pet food world. People have to start following suit,
you know, because you don't want to feed the dog
food and then go back out to the kennel or
in your house whatever and have a big, big mess,
you know, or land mines out in your yard so
they're not digesting you that. It took what we learned
(11:20):
from that venture and even improved on even more to
take it to quote unquote the next level. Yeah, and
some of the things that we've learned, you know, house
they're getting to be too much calcium. Some people think
you got to have calcium.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Well you do.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Got to have calcium. There's a minimum of one point
one percent and a maximum of no more than two
point five percent in a dog food. You know, too
much calcium causes growth deficiencies, to cause the bones to
get a little walking and it really blocks the dog's
ability to absorb zinc. And you need zinc for a
lot of things. Yeah, number one skin and coat, but
just whole body health. You got to have zinc in
(11:50):
your diet. And if you can't, if you can't absorb that,
if it's getting blocked by too much calcium, you're not
getting no benefit of it. So you'll notice that in
your skin and coat. You know, I spend a lot
of time in studying and the hired doctor George Collins
on nutritionness out of Saint Louis. Been in the industry
for years and worked for all the big major companies
and just focus on keeping the protein levels high higher
(12:13):
and then the calium levels low. And there's ways to
do that with with you know, using the whole hidr
lifed chicken, a little devil of blood and meal and
so on and so forth, and buying a quality premium
product that we use. People some manufacturers are buying a
cheaper meat meal and they're getting more bones and ash,
and that's why the costminers are so high. But the
(12:35):
government says no more than two point five percent and
in a back of dog food. So yeah, big, big difference.
And you know, these guys just spend a lot of
time and a lot of money h studying it and
they do have a passion for it. But they take
took their knowledge from the real feed meal time and
put it in. It's not just an investment for them.
They're not just throwing money in it and spending a
wheel hope that lands on jackpot. That's not what they're with.
(12:59):
Their purpose is and they really do make believe in
and have a passion for animal health. Yeah, and we
believe we're the best nutritional value on the market. Are
we the cheapest though? Are we the most expensive? Lord?
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Though?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
But nutritionally, we're the best value on the market and
in our state of the art facility they built. You
can go back on the Facebook page you can see
a video Scott put out back in April. He's gets
a whole tour. Not I don't know if any other
pet food companies ever done that. Just open the doors,
wide open, video and go through video the whole thing
in the public size that for anybody to go look at.
I've been to a lot of pet food plants and
(13:33):
most of them you have to leave your phone in
your vehicle and sign an NBA before you can come
inside it. Ours is wide open. Not wide open that
they just came off the street and walk in it.
But you know, if you've got business to tend with us,
you know, basically wide open because they have to video
on Facebook. But it's pretty pretty neat, you know. We
get your We have a lab so when the trucks
come in our facility, they weigh in and then they
(13:56):
go to a lab. Truck drivers get out and they
go into a breaker in the bottom of the lab our.
Lab techs come out probe the trucks take it inside
and we've got a machine that's a wet chemistry machine
and they can test for anything. We know exactly what
cowsum levels are, we know the peroxide values, how old
the product is, test for salmonilla, all that, all that stuff.
(14:19):
We can test for it, and if it's good, it
moves into the receiving pit of us. No good to
turn around, they leave and uh so our our suppliers
who we buy our products from, no, we're going to
do that. So they send us good product. They're not
going to take the time and sending us a product
that's not any good knowing we're going to reject it.
Then they got to try to sell somebody else or
get do something else with it. So we get we
get premium product, and the grains come in, they go
(14:40):
to the to the grain side, and negga n loaded
and the silos. Any of the meat meals that we use,
like a beef meal, chicken meal, portmeal, fish meal goes
inside and we can receive four trucks an hour. Well
why does that matter? Because if you can only receive
one truck an hour, that's all you can make. And
so we can receive four trucks an hour. So somebody
plays the truck truck loload order today. You know, day's Wednesday.
(15:02):
We can deliver it to my Monday, you know, so
we can get it made pretty quick because of the way
they design this facility, Yeah, built in scalability.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
And so they come into the to the receiving pit,
receive the meals, and all that stuff goes into big,
big storage towers. If you look at the plant's like
a big stack in the air, but it's all different
storage bins. And then when we're going to make a
we're going to run a formula and augusts mixed together
into batching and then all of that product goes in
you know, their rices, the grains and the meat meals
all go into a hammer meal if you know what
(15:32):
a hammer meal if you don't think about a cylinder
or a coffee can, so to speak, with a rod
through it and a bunch of little hammers on the
inside of its spinning real fast. So it just crushes
it all up into a powder. And we grind that
so much where it goes through a three sixty fourth
screen has to fall through the three sixty four so
it's almost like a real fine powder. Yeah, And it
goes from that into the extruder extruders that if you
(15:55):
want to call it an oven or cooking process, it's
where it gets extruded. So they take steam and pressure
into this extruder. So if you look at the carbohydrates
under a microscope our kibble, it pops it like a
like a piece of popcorn kernel, and then it streets
out into a kibble. The knives cut it into a
kibble and that goes up pneumatically over into the dryer,
and so on and so forth. But the unique thing
(16:17):
about that three sixty four screen is we're not so
much worried about how many tons can we make per hour?
Right in a pet food manufacturing plant, the more tongs
you can produce an hour, the more money you're gonna make.
You know, tons per our tons p hour. We slow
our down a little bit. We want quality more than quantity,
so we slow our ours cooking process, so to speak, down,
(16:38):
grind a little bit longer to get a finer it's
just going to help with digestibility. If you take a
handful of popcorn kernels just right of the bag or
the jar and you swallow them, you're gonna see them again,
and you're gonna have a belly ache. We all know
that about corn, right, you pop them in the popcorn,
you never see that again. You digest it. Right. So
with the carbohydrates, we pop all those really well, we're
(17:02):
gonna get a good digest. We know they're gonna get
a digest and the dog is gonna be a good
a lot of use of the product. So it goes
over in our in our facility kind of like a
hall of separation, and it goes from the extruder over
to the dryer through air. You show up shot over
in the in the pipeline. That's a break right there.
If there's any contamination salmonella, that's gonna be on the
(17:23):
raw side. So the people who work on the on
the feed meal side, so to speak, the extruder and
all the receiving pits there, they never intermingle with the
people on the post cook side. They have different break rooms,
different time clocks. They see each other. They come to work,
and they see each other they leave. They don't intermingle
during the day. That's how you control food safety contamination
one way. So it goes over into the dryer, comes
(17:44):
in about twenty percent moreture. We drive down to about
eight percent and then it goes into the fat coder
cooler and over into the backing uh, and it gets
bagged up into the warehouse. It's pretty simple, but slow
and steady wins their race every time. Yeah, buying quality ingredients.
If we buy quality ingredients, we can produce a quality kibble.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah. And I think that it's just really clear while
you're talking the how matters, you know. And I think
having that level of transparency and being able to I
mean like, I mean, it's not like you're a scientist
or like a nutritionist in there doing the work, but
I mean they're share It sounds like they're sharing most everything,
(18:27):
even with the sales guy, you know, the rep, the
the guy that's out there interacting with people. And uh.
I think the a company that's willing to be transparent.
And I like the fact that there's there's two two owners,
you know. Also the fact that they've worked together for
so long, like kind of proves that they trust each other.
(18:47):
And they must be some pretty good old boys. They're
good and shared passions.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
You know, they're there their family, you know, family minded
family meaning and we're all one big family work here,
and we've all worked with them in the past and and.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Uh, so every back comes with a little bit of family.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Absolutely exactly right, you know it. Uh, it's it's just
not a big, big capital venture. You know, there's some
brand there's some good brands out there, but they're owned
by big, big corporations and it's just you know, there's
not much passion into it. You know a lot of marketing.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Yeah, it seems like there's a lot more bioavailability inside
of the product you guys are putting out versus other.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Absolutely, there's there's there's different forms of minerals you can get.
You can get rock form, or you can get organic.
We use organic for for example. UH, selenium is a
great product. It's great. They're using selenium to slow down
the aging process with Alzheimer's patients. There's fighting cancers that
selenium will help increase the egg count and the females
(19:48):
burn counting the males. UH slows down oxidation. The rock
form will be a sodium selenite or a sodium sellingate. Uh.
A lot of pet food companies use that. And if
you look look at that up it's it's has to humans.
It comes in a box with skull and crossbones on it.
We use cellplex, a form of selenium yeast, and it
comes from all Tech over in Lexington, Kentucky area. It
(20:12):
come right up through the ground. It's it's organic, there's
free right in the bloodstream, so they get full full
use of that product. Is it costs a little bit
more money, but the benefits out weigh the negatives, so
it's worth spending a little bit extra more money. We
trademark the term Sciences in the bag and we believe
(20:32):
that you know, you'll have some brands that advertised, oh,
for skin and coat for gut health, Well, all of
ours are for skinning coat and gut health, every one
of them. Yeah, And we've got twelve formulas now and
for more coming out by the end of the year,
so we'll have sixteen formulas by the end of the year.
And every one of the war formulas are about gut health.
And then we have some that are more a little
bit specific for skinning coat, and we have some with
(20:54):
lucosamin and androit and the hips and joints, and there's
a lot of foods that advertise that they use lucosamin
and android, but if you look at it, against's an
tag dress three hundred milligrams. We're using eight hundred and
fifty to nine hundred milligrams you know per kilogram in
the back. So that's therapeutical levels for skin and coat
or for the hips and joint. And why why would
does hown guys care about that? Well, to think about it,
how many times have you took your dogs out and
(21:16):
hunting and you go get them out of the dog
box and you get home or the next morning you
see them come calling down the dog out, stoved up
and they're just stiff. Well, the coastman, you're great and
will help help with that. Yeah, And so it helps
to recovery a lot faster.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, maybe less trips to.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
The absolutely absolutely. And when you're hunting, you know, multiple
nights a week or multiple days a week and hunting hard,
you got to keep those dogs fresh, you know, and
keep them feeling good. I tell people, you know, we
can survive, you know, we can survive off anything. We can.
Here at this hotel, they've got a breakfast down there
and it any very good one. It's that stuff that's
(21:52):
bought frozen and you throw it to the microwave. When
you eat it, you can eat it and you can survive.
You can live off that, but it's not very nutritious
for you. We can go out to night and go
to the Chinese buffet or a Mexican Mexican place, and
we can eat all the food we want. We can
drink tequila and beer all night long and get up
tomorrow and go build fence. But I promise you we're
gonna hit our thumb. We're gonna we're gonna defence. It
is gonna be a little crooked. Something's gonna be off. But
(22:13):
if we'll drink ice water, ice tea and eat, you know,
a good clean meal steak, chicken, breast, pork chops or whatever,
and get a good night's sleep, well we'll have less
mistakes tomorrow. We work same way with these With these hounds,
whether you're competition hunting or just pleasure hunting, you want
them their minds sharp and feeling good, and they're gonna
perform for a lot better. And in the big, the
(22:34):
big tonehound events. You know, the difference between going home
and a brand new truck, or you know twenty thousand
and thirty thousand dollars could be five seconds, and the
difference between five seconds could be how you feel you know,
a decision you make. So no, no dog food is
gonna make your dog a world champion. Uh, but it
could sure enough hell or hurt you.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
I mean, I can see that difference even inside of
me right now. Like I so, my wife and I
we've we've cleaned up what we've been eating and we're
doing like a reset diet. We're doing carnivore and so
it's all like animal products is all we're eating, Like
you know, meat and you know, some dairy and stuff.
We're doing a little dirty carnivore. But yeah, but I
(23:18):
can tell you, like just with for one, the amount
of waste that my body gives off is nothing compared
to what it was before when I was eating eating
a lot of wider things. It's clear that my body
is designed to do something with that nutrition, that meat
to where it's like I feel better, I wake up
(23:42):
and I don't have a mental fog. There's there's a
lot of times before with just like a normal diet
that I would uh it would take me a while
to shake a fog out out of my brain. I
wouldn't be as sharp. And then my energy levels are
more sustained throughout the day and I can't help but
think that it would be that way inside of inside
(24:02):
of dog food too.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Absolutely, you know, dog really no different than us. Yeah,
it does make a big, big difference in what you
feed your dog and how they perform. And uh, you
know you can you can buy cheaper dog foods out
there and you'll feed two or three times more. You know.
I was talking to a guy had a stock dog
trial and he said, I'm not I'm not saying this
just because you're here. You said, but since I've started
feeding your dog food, I went from buying eight bags
(24:25):
a month to five the same amount of dogs. And
that's the savings right there. It may cost a little
bit more per bag, but your overall cost per day
feeding is going well. Well.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Even eating this carnivore diet, I'm not hungry near as much.
I eat a lot less volume wise, I eat what
I need. And uh yeah, I could see that. The
last time that I went and looked through a store
to try to pick out a new pet food and
new dog food, I was overwhelmed with all the options.
(24:55):
I didn't know, like what should I feed my dog?
So talk about how some one should think whenever they're
going in to choose one of the formulas that you
guys have.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
The fattest fuel, protein builds muscle. Some people have it wrong.
They think, well, I got to feed a thirty twenty
or a thirty five twenty five protein and fat. That
protein and high protein, you're gonna give my dog a
lot of hoodre You're gonna really pump them up. No,
that's not true. It's the fat, fattest fuel. Protein builds
muscle and help to recover. And a dog can only
really process thirty percent, no more than thirty percent protein anyway.
(25:27):
So if you're feeding your dog. When we used to
have one in prior, like we had a forty two
percent protein to hot, we didn't really know. But we
know now that they're gonna most that's gonna be excreted
through the year. You know, if you get over thirty percent,
they really can't process that anyway. So think about your
dog's at activity level and then they choose your protein
and fat. You know, if if you're hunting a couple
(25:48):
of nights a week, you can probably get away. Just
find a twenty four to twelve or twenty six eighteen.
Twenty six eighteen is a really good all around you know,
we're coming in the fall of the year, are getting colder.
Dog's gonna eat more to help stay warmer. They're gonna
burn more calories. So if you feed a twenty four
to twenty all high energies, not all, but most of
(26:09):
all the high energies you ever see, there are twenty
four twenty four percent protein, twenty percent fat, and then
use it goes from there to a thirty twenty more
a little more protein if you need it. The bully
guys and then we love the bully guys and they
love our food, but they would feed a fifty percent
protein diet if they could, just because they think they're
gotta have it to get them dog really popped their
muscles out of and again they can't process that much
(26:30):
protein anyway.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
It's probably bad on the kidneys too, it.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Is, you know, high protein does not cause kidney problems.
It is causing them to work. You excrete all that protein.
But if your dog is born or it already has
a kidney problem, too much protein could be deadly.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
So they might have to drink a lot more water.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yes, and you know, too much phosphorus, and that comes
with buying too much ash in your diet. I think
about when I talked earlier about too much calcium, because
they're getting buying too much bone and ash. Well, that's
causing too much phosphorus. Is a direct correlation to the
kidney disease, which is the nuber one kill dogs anyway,
and there is there is some science to it. But
just come on your dog's activity level. So a lot
of guys in the winter time, they'll feed a twenty
four to twenty or thirty twenty in the wintertime. In
(27:09):
the summer time, when they're not hunting much nothing, they'll
feed more of a maintenance or a norse normally active,
lower protein, lower fat dog food. But if you're hunting
a year round hard, you know, you might feed at
twenty six eighteen and then just feed a little bit
more in the wintertime. You see so many things out there,
there's so much marketing. I've sold a lot of dog
food in my life, but I have never ever sold
(27:30):
a bag of dog food to a dog. I've always
sold it to the dog's owner, To a person, A
lot of emotion goes into buying dog food. You know, hey,
that'll boy, give me a couple of hats. I better
try his dog food. You know that doesn't make no
sense to me. But know exactly what you're buying, and
know what your dog need is. There's no need in
(27:51):
feeding the high protein, high fat diet. If you don't
need that, it's just a waste. And when it talks
about calories per cup, you know calories. We know that
you need a higher You got a performance dog, I
need to fight feed higher calories. Everybody should measure their
cakews per cup the same way. You take this aight
downce coffee cup right here, you scoop up your kibble,
(28:11):
you weigh it out. There's a mathematical formulation you do
to get your cake cows. If you take that same cup,
then that kibble, then you grind it. Well, now you've
got more room. Dad's more so it looks like it's
more dense, and it's not. Uh So. Some people will
advertise real high cake cows and they may be fibbing
a little. You know, I'm back early in the days.
I've talked people, so how you can feed your X
number of how many cups a day are you feeding?
(28:32):
I just feed one or two cups of dog foo today?
Ain't no way. Let me see your dog, let me
see your cup. Well, then they ring you McDonald's thirty
two ounce cup. I'm like, no, man, a cup eight
ounces as a cup because I was the same way
early on. I didn't know. Yeah, I used the coffe again,
I feed one can of day how much foods that can?
And I didn't know? Or I use an automatic feeder
A lot of us, a lot of us. How guys
(28:52):
do that too, And there's nothing wrong with that, but
you need to check on it. You know, how's the
dog talk to you? Some people think they actually do
talk to you that, but through their food consumption, through
their input and their output and how they perform is
how they talk to you. Yeah, you need to so
much water they're drink and how much food drinking and
all that stuff?
Speaker 1 (29:10):
So well, great, Well, where can guys fine? Next level?
I mean, you guys are still pretty early as far
as getting on the shelves. It sounds like from what
late twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yeah, it's it's amazing how fast it is grown. Since
we started last year a bout a year. At twelve
months now, we're just close to twenty five hundred retailers
across the country. We're we're We've had retailers in every
state in the United States. You can find us go
to our website and put in your zip code and
it'll populate but stores around you, and that's getting updated daily.
(29:43):
I had two new stores this morning, one in Taaloqa, Oklahoma,
and one in Glenwood, Arkansas. But you can also go
to Chewy. We're on Chewy now Chewy dot com. Okay, cool,
we're on there. Amazon, our website, you can we're up
our website. But there's plenty places around and it's growing.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
If you've got an interest in it and you can't
find it, and you can go to info at uspetfood
dot com or our website. It's into an email and
they'll get hold of one on US reps. You email
me directly, be White at uspetfood dot com, look me
up on Facebook. I'm not hard to find. We're always
available at that telephone and there's a few minutes we've
been talking. It's gone off several times already. But that's
(30:24):
part of the job, and it's part I.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Like, yeah, yeah, I mean, wherever you buy your dog food,
you might mention it to them too. I saw it
pop up at the local farmers co op. How would
people stay up with Next Level because I mean, you
guys are expanding rapidly right now, and I'm sure there's
a lot of exciting things that you guys are getting
involved in.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Yeah, just you know, our Facebook page is the best
way to really follow. You know, we're active. We do
a lot of dog trials. You know, we've sponsored several
coon hunting events and stock dog events, bully dog shows
and the fancy a case type dog shows, and we're
always looking for places to partner and be a part
of it in it's just gotta be a good a
(31:05):
good fit for both of us. But we're out and
about all the time, you know, but looking forward to
growing more and more. And uh uh, it's exciting to
see the difference that makes you know our product. It's
it's always cool to see those videos or those pictures
you know, before and after. You know, people you can't
buy one bag of dog food and see see a difference.
(31:27):
You're going to see a difference on ours pretty quick.
In the in the stewl volume, if you if you
buy a bag of Next Level of dog food, put
it on that dog and that dog only or that
only feed. Next Level no trees on nothing for thirty days,
you will see a difference, but usually it takes a
couple of months or let's see a big, big, big difference.
But some folks, you know, they they want to see
(31:48):
overnight success. And you can on some things, uh and digestion,
on urs, you can. Most dog foods you got to take.
You need to take seven to ten days to do
a transition ours. You know, you could probably go ahead
and switch, yeah and not have no problem.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
But that's great.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
It's always best to take a couple of days, but
I don't. I always do a coult switch. If you
want to see the value of dog food, to switch
it overnight, see what happens.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Yeah, yeah, well cool, Well thanks Brandon, you bet. Yeah,
but uh, I really am looking forward to going and
checking out the setup down here in Mount Pleasant.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Yeah, I'm excited. You've had you guys come down. Have
you come down and go through it? I know they
those guys like to give tours and see how it's made.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
But I'm looking forward to going to some some bear
trials and I want to go bear hunting with some hounds. Yeah.
So yeah, well I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
I might have some some ideas well. Cool. Well, we'll
catch you next time.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
I better take care.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Thank you for listening. The Bear Hunting Magazine hund Cast
is recorded by a bear hunting magazine and produced by
Mountain Gravity Media. Be sure leave us a five star
review on iTunes and keep guarding the cake
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