Jiminy’s Is Fighting Climate Change One Pet Treat At A Time David Riemer Contributor I write about memorable and compelling innovation stories.
Nov 7, 2022,02:25pm EST
Anne Carlson, founder and CEO of Jiminy’s, was two years into building her new, sustainable pet food company, before she was able to tell the story of why she created it. It turns out that the story was too emotional for Carlson to share in public. It was a classic “purpose story” that began with an upsetting conversation Carlson had with her adult daughter about the future of our planet. The conversation was the “inciting incident” in her story that led the former Del Monte executive to tackle climate change by identifying new sources of protein for pet food—starting with crickets. Since creating the company, Carlson and her team have raised $6 million in seed money, secured distribution in 1,100 Petco stores, built a direct-to-consumers business and generated millions in annual revenue. Now, as Carlson looks to raise a Series A to help dramatically scale the business, she has a new storytelling challenge.
But this startup story starts with Carlson’s origin story.
While at Del Monte, Carlson helped aggregate and sell its pet food assets and rebrand them as Big Heart Pet Brands. In 2016, the J.M. Smucker Company bought the new pet brand, and Carlson moved on to think about her next thing. Around this time, Carlson had a conversation that most parents eventually have with their adult children about whether they hope to have kids one day. Carlson’s daughter answered, “no.” She wouldn’t want to bring them into a world that was devolving due to climate change. Carlson was heartbroken. She wished her daughter would experience the same joy she had raising a family. And she might have felt a bit guilty as well about not doing enough to change the narrative. Looking back, Carlson says, “I realized that I couldn’t just do a normal job after that—building a better future for her was everything.”
Because of Carlson’s experience in the pet food business, she knew that an estimated 25%-35% of domestic meat production was used to feed dogs and cats. Dogs alone consume 32 billion pounds of protein annually. The environmental impact of feeding pets in the U.S. is huge, because of the massive amount of land, water and feed required to raise cows and chickens. In researching alternatives, Carlson discovered that insects, especially crickets, are a tremendous source of protein that require a fraction of the resources required to produce traditional meat products. Cricket production, by example, generates 99% less greenhouse gas than chicken production. Jiminy’s was created to address this macro problem. In Carlson’s early pitches, she focused on this big picture story.
But this is where things get more complicated and the real storytelling challenge emerges. The story that inspired Carlson to start the company is a memorable way to introduce Jiminy’s, but to raise a series A, she must also convince investors that there’s a massive market of pet owners willing to feed their dogs insect-based food. This is a common challenge for the founder who has a great origin story for their business. They’ve told us their story, but they’ve yet to introduce the true protagonist in their product story. There has to be a customer with a set of needs that only Jiminy’s can solve.
The good news for Carlson is that millennial and Gen Z pet owners are extraordinarily conscious of — and troubled by — the causes of climate change; and they’re knowledgeable about emerging solutions. They also make-up nearly half the dog ownership in the U.S. Now Carlson has the protagonist for her new story.
