Cat Treat Business Plan, With a 12-Month Projection

A cat treat business plan sets out the treats you'll make, the state rules you'll sell under, who buys them at what price, and the first year month by month. Cats are picky, so cat treats tend to be simple: single-ingredient freeze-dried meat, small baked fish bites, catnip. They're also animal feed, which means most of the paperwork is with your state's feed officials, not the county health department, and claims cat owners often look for, urinary health and hairball control, are ones the FDA reviews. In the example below, a pet treat maker in Austin sells freeze-dried chicken direct and to pet shops, baked salmon crunchies and gift sets, makes a profit from month 2, and ends the year about $19,100 ahead on $48,100 of sales, after paying $20 an hour for the making. Below is a description example, each part of the plan, the rules and the claims, the projection, the startup budget, and a free template.

The short version

• Describe the business in a paragraph: the treats, where you sell, the kitchen, the goals.
• Cost a pouch with your time in it: a freeze-dried ounce takes four ounces of raw chicken.
• Price direct and pet shop wholesale separately.
• Cat treats are animal feed: safe, sanitary and truthfully labeled.
• Many states require registration before you sell, even at a farmers market.
• Leave out "urinary health" and "hairball control" unless you have the data; FDA reviews those claims.
• TaroStack keeps every batch as a lot and walks any pouch to every customer who got its batch. More below.

Part 1: the business description

Willow Creek Pet Co., a made-up pet food and treat maker in Austin, Texas, I use in these examples, writes:

Willow Creek Pet Co. makes freeze-dried chicken treats and baked salmon crunchies for cats in a licensed kitchen, sold at two farmers markets, online within Texas, and wholesale to pet shops, with catnip gift sets for the holidays. Every pouch carries a lot code. In our first year we plan to supply 15 pet shops.

Part 2: what a pouch costs

Freeze-drying removes most of the water: four ounces of raw chicken breast, about a dollar, make a one-ounce pouch. The gift set, a handmade catnip toy with a pouch of chicken in a gift box, costs $9.37: $4.83 for the toy with ten minutes of sewing, $2.80 for the pouch, $1.20 for the box and the card fee. How to put your time into a cost is in how to price homemade dog treats, and the arithmetic is the same for cats.

Part 3: customers and prices

A pet shop pouch leaves $2.10, about a third of a direct one, but 15 shops reordering keep the freeze dryer running every week. How to set a wholesale price a shop will accept is in how to price handmade items for wholesale.

Part 4: the rules and the claims

Treats are animal food, and animal food must be safe to eat, made under sanitary conditions, free of harmful substances, and truthfully labeled; many states' labeling rules are based on a model from the Association of American Feed Control Officials (FDA). Many states also require pet food and treat registration or a license before you distribute, and selling or giving treats away at a farmers market counts as distribution, as does shipping an online order into another state (AAFCO). So the plan budgets for registration and lab tests before the first market, and for every state you'll ship into.

The claims are where cat treats differ. The FDA reviews specific claims on pet food, such as "maintains urinary tract health," "low magnesium" and "hairball control" (FDA), and those are exactly the claims cat owners look for. Keep the label to what the treat is, "freeze-dried chicken breast, one ingredient," unless you have the data behind a health claim. What a pet treat business owes each state is set out in more detail in dog treat business plan. This is general information, not legal advice.

Part 5: the first year, month by month

Fixed costs are $765 a month: kitchen time ($400), state registration fees averaged over the year ($40), lab testing ($50), insurance ($50), market fees ($150), the website and online shop ($40), and software and card fees ($35). Sales start at 15% of full speed and reach it by month 11:

The year's sales are $48,085 and the profit $19,105, on top of $20 an hour for the making. At full speed the freeze dryer handles about 160 pounds of raw chicken a month.

Part 6: the startup budget

Get the template

Download the cat treat business plan workbook. Four sheets: your products with price, variable cost and monthly volume at full speed; the year, month by month, with sales, profit and cash; your fixed costs; and your startup budget with working cash. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.

Where this stops working

Chicken from two suppliers, a freeze dryer running a batch every day or two, and pouches going to markets, an online shop and 15 pet shops. If a supplier calls about a chicken lot, or a customer says a pouch made their cat sick, a notebook can't say which batches used that lot or which shops got them.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack keeps every batch traceable, from the chicken to the shop.

Batches with their lots. Each treat is a recipe, and units convert: chicken bought by the case, weighed by the gram. Recording a batch takes the chicken and pouches off stock from the lots used, at what you paid, notes the lots automatically, and divides by the pouches that came out good.

One report, lot to customer. Every batch goes into a lot with its code and best-by date, and one report walks a chicken lot to every batch it went into and every customer who got one, which is the first hour of any recall.

And the shops' orders. Pet shop reorders are sales orders that show whether the pouches to fill them are on the shelf while you're still typing, and margins are reported by product and by customer.

Recipes, batches, lots, recalls and margins by product and customer are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.

Questions people also ask

Can I sell homemade cat treats?

Yes, but cat treats are animal food, so they must be safe, made under sanitary conditions and truthfully labeled, and many states require registration or a license before you sell, including at farmers markets.

Is a cat treat business profitable?

It can be. In the example, a maker selling freeze-dried chicken and baked salmon crunchies direct and to pet shops ends the first year about $19,100 ahead on $48,100 of sales, with $20 an hour paid for the making.

Can I say my cat treats help with hairballs?

The FDA reviews claims like "hairball control" and "maintains urinary tract health" on pet food, so leave them out unless you have the data to support them.

How much does it cost to start a cat treat business?

In the example, about $7,530: $5,530 for a freeze dryer, a heat sealer, a scale, packaging, label design, state registration and first lab tests, and a market setup, and $2,000 of working cash.