Today we’d like to introduce you to Amy Jacobs.
Hi Amy, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
It all started with an idea. An idea to use a viable, fun, and readily available by-product (beer grain) to create wholesome, tasty, and fun treats for pups everywhere.
We wanted to know what our pups were eating as so many treats contain dangerous ingredients such as salt, preservatives, and most of all sugar! We set out to create treats we could feel good feeding our own pups, Katja and Kahlua. After many months of working to perfect our recipes, and many, many treat taste-testings by Katja and Kahlua, we had a couple of proven winners!
To be sure, we asked all our friends’ pups to be taste-testers (bet you can guess how hard we had to ask) and when even the pickiest of pups couldn’t resist our biscuits we knew we were ready!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Luckily our road has been pretty smooth with lots of support from fellow paw entrepreneurs and doggie parents!
We have been fortunate to meet several great small business owners who carry our products in their retail locations and we have gotten great responses during our in-person events. We recently launched our website so we are looking forward to growing our name outside of the Northern Utah area.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
K&K’s Bodacious Beer Biscuits at our core creates artisanal, handmade dog treats using spent beer grain as the primary ingredient. What is spent beer grain you ask and why do we use it for doggie treats? Spent beer grain is barley that has been soaked, sprouted, and dried to create a “malt”. This malt is then boiled at the start of the beer brewing process where the sugars get extracted in the boil, this goes on to make beer. The grain is then “spent” but is still a great source of protein and fiber, and dogs love the taste!
We proudly use beer grain from the largest craft brewery in SLC, UINTA Brewing. We source local ingredients whenever possible to support our fellow small business owners and our local economy. For example, we use carrots for our Kahlua’s Kraveable Karrot Bodacious Beer Biscuits from an up-and-coming farmer friend, and we source our meats from a sustainable local rancher. We hand mix, roll, cut and bake all of our treats in our home base of Salt Lake City, Utah. Our mission is three-fold:
1. Provide tasty and nutritious treats for our furry friends,
2. Do so in an eco-minded way so as to not bring harm to our environment, and
3. Give back to local animal rescue organizations-20% of every purchase goes to support medical care for homeless pets and finding them furever homes.
We do not believe in using plastics so you will find all of our packaging in paper “take-away” type containers. We have too much plastic waste and microplastics in our environment, and as it turns out in our bodies too!
You can know that your pup is eating love in every Bodacious Beer Biscuit and you can feel good about doing good for Mother Earth!
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
K&K’s is my second full-time job. My lifelong career has been in the field of ecology.
I have spent the past several decades working to understand the ecological impacts of climate change and responses to changes in land management practices as well as working to restore natural habitats.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://kkbodaciousbeerbiscuits.com/
- Instagram: @kkbodaciousbeerbiscuitsut
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088015862473
Image Credits
Amy Jacobs, Lauren Lerch, Tracey Baldwin, and Billy Smallen
