The dog-food business is a dog-eat-dog world, but Marie and Kevin Bangerter are successfully luring canines - from mutts to champions - to their premium chow.
The Bangerters are vice presidents of Supreme Source Enterprises Inc., a Riverton company that markets two lines of dog food. Supreme Source is battling such top brands as Science Diet, Iams and Pro Plan for a chunk of the $7 billion a year dog-food business.Supreme Source gets rave reviews from dogs owners and support from an unlikely quarter: health food store owners.
"It's the best-selling dry dog food we have," says Kathy Melby, owner of Kathy's Natural Foods in Holladay. "The ingredient list is awesome. A person could eat it."
The ingredient list does sound like it could be attached to a food item meant for human consumption: lamb and chicken meal, dried eggs, ground rice, corn and oats, tomato pomace, ground peas, brewers dried yeast, chelated minerals, vitamins and trace minerals. Supreme Source contains canola oil, a vegetable oil that promotes a healthy, shiny coat.
It also contains a special combination of minerals that "boost the immune system" and enzymes and an extract from the yucca plant that reduce the amount and odor of waste.
Some Supreme Source supporters like it for what it leaves out: ethoxiquin, a preservative commonly used in other premium dog foods that has been linked with reproductive and coat problems.
Marie's brother, Judd Sheranian, a violinist with the Utah Symphony and German shepherd breeder, began work on the Supreme Source formula in 1985. Sheranian decided to make his own dog food after unsuccessfully trying to find a brand that used what he considered the very best nutritional ingredients.
Sheranian worked with several veterinarians and nutritionists to develop the Supreme Source formula. Gale Salmon, a Salt Lake veterinarian, reviewed Supreme Source formula tests for Shera-nian.
"It was certainly a top-quality food, in the same quality range as your premium foods like Science Diet," Salmon said.
He then contracted with American Nutrition, Inc. in Ogden, to produce the chow. American Nutrition, a pet-food manufacturer, makes about 250 varieties of dog food under contracts with more than 100 businesses.
Sheranian selected the manufacturer because of its willingness to take the extra steps required in the Supreme Source formula, such as adding some ingredients like canola oil and enzymes by hand at key points in the production process.
Sheranian, who is president of Supreme Source, assumed a silent partner role in the business in1989, turning it over to his sister and her husband.
"We thought it would be fun to work together, have your own business, and it was something we really believed in," Marie Bangerter said.
That same year the first batch of Supreme Source dog food rolled off the production line.
"We thought we could just go to grocery stores and get it in," said Kevin Bangerter. "That was a joke."
It took six months to unload the first truckload of 960 forty-pound bags. The Bangerters took samples to groomeries, kennels, breeders and selected pet stores. They also approached health-food stores.
"We thought that would be the market that really fit our dog food. People that are health conscious really care about their dogs," Marie Bangerter said.
But they also "gave a lot of the first truckload away. We knew we had such a good deal that most people would come back, and they did."
Dick Dotson, manager of The Dog Show in Salt Lake City and a breeder of Bassett hounds, became a believer in Supreme Source early on because it's a Utah product and high quality to boot.
"Because it's not something that is made for a national market, I think they've put a little more attention into it," Dotson said.
The Bangerters have progressed from moving one truckload in half a year to one truckload a month. That's a long way from the rumored sales of a competitor like Science Diet, which supposedly moves 20 truckloads of dog food a day.
"If we could just get Utah, we'd be happy," Marie Bangerter said. "We'll just keep growing slow, and soon we'll be out there with the big boys."
Supreme Source is currently available in two varieties - maintenance and puppy. A 40-pound bag of the maintenance chow costs $27.99.
By the end of the year, Supreme Source plans to introduce a performance line and a brand of cat food.
The Bangerters primarily market Supreme Source in Utah. Time and money permitting, they plan to add a sales staff and expand into other states.