Marsh Dog, the Baton Rouge company that produces all-natural dog biscuits made from nutria meat, is getting ready to resume production on a retooled line of products and hopes to be back on local stores shelves in August.
It has been nearly one year since the company inked a deal with a national manufacturer and subsequently ceased production while it transitioned from making its dog treats in house to producing them in a major production facility.
After being in a holding pattern for the past 10 months, the company recently shipped 42,000 pounds of raw frozen nutria meat to its manufacturer, and within the next week, its redesigned packaging is scheduled to arrive at the plant. Then it’s just a matter of waiting for the manufacturer, which Marsh Dog has declined to identify, to work the local product into its busy production line.
“Once they get our new bags, we’ll have a better idea about the turnaround time,” says Veni Harlan, a graphic designer who co-founded Marsh Dog in 2012 with her brother, attorney Hansel Harlan. “Then it will all be shipped back to Louisiana for distribution.”
The idea behind the product and packaging redesign was to allow Marsh Dog to scale up and expand beyond Louisiana, where it has been extremely well received. To make it happen, the company had to change its product recipes, making them easier to manufacture and giving them a longer shelf life.
The new product line includes three variations of the nutria-based dog treats: one with blueberries, one with cranberries and one with sweet potatoes and rice.
Hansel Harlan originally conceived the idea for the company after learning about the extreme damage nutria cause to marsh grasses and reading an article about how an expensive state campaign to promote nutria consumption proved ineffective.
In search of meat to feed his allergy-prone dog, he began to toss around the idea of a business making nutria-based dog treats that would contribute to wetland conversation through nutria consumption.
In the years since, demand has grown rapidly for Marsh Dog products, which are currently sold in about 50 specialty stores and vet clinics statewide and online.
Veni Harland says the goal is to go national, though the company is still looking for a distributor.
But the Harlans are optimistic and are hoping to have their first big showing on the national stage in early 2019 at the Global Pet Expo in Orlando.
“We’re hopeful we can get in there,” Veni Harlan says. “Because there is nothing else like us anywhere.”
