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Continue ShoppingNeal: Hey everybody. Welcome back to Growlies. I just wanted to thank you for watching and let you know why go to SuperZoo and some of the highlights from this year's SuperZoo.
SuperZoo, they say it's the largest pet food industry convention in the world. It includes grooming and pets and your traditional, industrial kibble diets, your natural foods. Everything that you think of in the pet industry is probably at SuperZoo.
I go and I choose SuperZoo over the other one that happens called Global because it has a lot more of the natural stuff and stuff for small independent pet food retailers. I go so I can learn more. There's plenty of opportunity to learn.
It can network with people who I adore and want to learn from, like Dr. Karen Becker or Rodney Habib or Barbara Royal or Lori Koecher. I could go on-- Emma Rutherford, The Two Crazy Cat Ladies. There's so many great and amazing people who go to these things that I really love meeting and learning more from. Then that gives me the opportunity when I have questions to contact them and ask those questions. That's a phenomenal opportunity.
This year, we went on the floor. There's tons of good products and interesting things and nice people to see. I always learn about what's going on. Hi Emma. I did mention you, Emma. Did you catch that?
It's always a learning experience. Then we also had the opportunity to meet with the answers. I'm trying to encourage them to work with me to come up to Canada because I think that they're an innovator. They're doing something that nobody else is doing. I want them in my store.
One of the things that makes this clear when I get there is that our store is somewhat unique. There's not a lot of stores that don't sell kibble. Since we haven't done that in over a decade, people are always impressed. I like that, but that's not why I go. It's not about ego. It's about the opportunity to learn from these people. I miss you too, Emma.
Dr. Becker and Dr. Raditic did an amazing talk on raw food this year. It was the most attended paid event at SuperZoo ever. Nice to see, right? Come on, how cool is that? We need to encourage more of that. We need more people to do things like this. What I would do is that-- Then we had a party put on by The Two Crazy Cat Ladies who-- If you are a cat person, follow The Two Crazy Cat Ladies because they are awesome, and they have a wealth of knowledge, and there's so much fun. Check them out.
They had a party, and then they had a mind jam for a bunch of smaller people or the social media people and some of them are not so small. We could all talk about how we can do things better, or how we can collaborate, so on and so forth, and I love that.
One of the reasons I go is because I'm tiny. I'm one store in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Not a big deal, really, but I want to encourage my other retailers to do something similar to what I'm trying to do which is, say to the kibble manufacturers, "You have not respected the channel of an independent pet food retail. You have your products in every convenient store, every big-box store, every grocery store, every type of retail that is out there in the world, so they haven't respected the channel".
I truly do believe this and there's no shame in saying that ultimately, independent pet food retail, micro guys like myself shouldn't be selling kibble. We shouldn't be. You have to stop selling kibble because they haven't respected your business. They've given your business away to every other type of retail on the planet. From the little corner convenience store that sells milk to the big-box superstore. They all sell the product you used to specialize in. How can you say your specialty "pet food retail specialty" when ultimately, you are selling the same thing as everybody else?
Look at Champion. They used to say only independent pet food retail. I think they're everywhere now. Maybe I'm wrong. It's okay. I'm okay with being wrong sometimes, but I learned and I changed my views. That's the best I can do.
I love you all. I just want to remind everybody. Hi, Jill. You can tell this is actually live because I'm watching it. I learned from going to SuperZoo that shouldn't be throwing pre-recorded things up it's lives and you should talk to people and blah, blah, blah, and I'm terrible at this, so I'm trying to learn, we learn.
Okay. There's more parking around back. Don't hesitate to contact us. I know it's backwards. It's because it's live. I stopped doing live because they were backwards. Thank you, Emma.
More parking around back. Don't hesitate to ask us about how to find the good rockstar parking. It's undercover so your car doesn't bake in the sun, or you don't get wet in the rain. It's really the best parking. We do deliver. Don't hesitate to ask us how we can deliver to you or meet your needs, bring it to you.
The whole goal of our organization is to make fresh foods easier for you. If there's ways we can do that, let us know. I'm working on this year, bringing out the ability to order online for in-store pickup or online delivery for locals. Then lastly, follows us on Facebook. How does it go? Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Instagram. Check us out. We're trying to do our best.
If you ever have any questions we can help out with if I don't know the answer, I have an amazing network of people who probably do. Love you all. Cheers, guys.