enjoyed my time there. Unfortunately, there are few consumer products companies in the area. This fact made it difficult to recruit top-notch employee talent in key functions. While moving Solid Gold Pet to Chesterfield is convenient for me, my personal situation was not a factor. Being in the St. Louis area offers Solid Gold Pet three important advantages: 1. Access to strong consumer product talent, including individuals with pet food experience; 2. Closer proximity to our manufacturing partners (most of which are in Missouri and Kansas) and our Kansas City-based third-party logistics provider; and, 3. Being in the center of the country allows us better access to our customers, who are located throughout North America. Have you found that Chesterfield has lived up to your expectations? Yes, we have very much enjoyed our first eight months in Chesterfield. We have a beautiful, dog friendly office with easy parking and good neighbors. There are plenty of food and shopping options close to our office. You clearly saw an advantage to basing the company in a location with several competitors: Royal Canin, Nestlé Purina PetCare, United Pet Group, Nature’s Variety and Whitebridge Pet Brands. Why was that an advantage? St. Louis has quietly become the “pet capital” of the United States, with more pet companies located here than any other city in the country. As I mentioned above, St. Louis provides us access to top-notch consumer product talent, including people with pet food experience. But that was only one factor in our decision to relocate Solid Gold Pet to the St. Louis area. Closer proximity to our supply chain partners as well as being centrally located were two other critical factors. What do you want residents and business owners in Chesterfield to know about Solid Gold that wouldn’t be obvious from reading your website?
founder, Sissy McGill, is truly a pioneer in pet health. Inspired by her sheer passion for pets, Sissy created the first Solid Gold dog formula by studying pet nutrition and ingredients from all over the world. Her mission was simple – to create a pet food that contained natural and holistic ingredients to help dogs and cats enjoy a longer, healthier life. Sissy included superfoods like pumpkins, apples, carrots and blueberries, as well as high-quality proteins in her recipes from the very beginning. Of course, they weren’t called “superfoods” then, but she knew how to combine ingredients for the holistic health of the pet. What is interesting about the culture at Solid Gold? It appears from your website that dogs are welcome in the workplace. Anything else that sets the company apart? The culture of Solid Gold Pet is of the upmost importance to me. What I have attempted to do is to leverage only the very best of the various cultures I have experienced in my career prior to Sold Gold, while leaving the bad stuff behind. In this, we strive to have an open culture, meaning we encourage everyone in the organization to express their ideas and opinions. Further, we empower our team to openly— and respectfully—disagree with one another. I do not assume that I am right, so when I express my thoughts on a particular topic, I am looking for the team to tell me what they think and not just go along with my idea just because I am the CEO. This approach is fostered at all levels of the organization. Tell us about Toby and Moose. Any other pets in the Rubin household? Toby and Moose are chocolate labradoodles. They are half-brothers, sharing the same father. Toby is 9 years old and Moose just turned 8. They are amazing dogs and a huge part of our family. Toby and Moose are what I call “love dogs”... they love being loved and are always near us in our house. And, of course, they are Solid Gold Pet dogs – they eat our dry and wet food, use our awesome wellness supplement, SeaMeal, as well as enjoy our meaty treats.
Solid Gold Pet is the company that started the holistic pet food category back in 1974. Our chesterfieldmochamber.com
July-September 2017 | Out & About
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