medical world is beginning to realise that there is no real distinction between pet’s physical and mental health.” Having gathered speed once, Burns has grown rapidly over a number of years, although, as John admits, the business environment is getting ever more trying, with new hurdles popping up on the track all the time. “The market has grown more challenging with the decline of bricks and mortar stores and the rise of digital. We are also facing a lot more competition; on the other, a lot of fake news (or lies, as I call it) about the principles I stand for and believe in, are populating the public sphere. I am an adamant proponent of the idea that wholegrains are an excellent way of feeding pets. Unfortunately, this claim has been challenged a lot in recent times, with calls for the development of more grain-free foods gaining traction, at the moment. At first I resisted that, because I think it is hard to formulate a healthy diet without using grains. Nevertheless, this year we launched our own grainfree product, whose base ingredient is buckwheat, which, despite its name, is a fruit seed that has not been used in pet food in the UK before, as far as I am aware,” he discusses.
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Company growth When John opened the company, he only had two products in his portfolio – one food specifically for adult dogs - which has remained the mainstay of the business to this day - and one for puppies. “Both are based on brown rice and chicken and this has remained our best-selling line. Naturally, we have expanded our range over time, adding brown rice and lamb, and brown rice and fish,” Burns’ founder explains. “Because not every dog is suited to every ingredient, we have also released an alternative to our Original range, in the shape of the maize-based Choice range. In addition, we offer our Sensitive+ range, which comes in pork and potato and duck and rice variations. Last but not least, another sought-after product is the aforementioned Free From range, which contains easily digestible duck and potato, as well as buckwheat, which is widely regarded as a superfood.” Just in time for Burns’ 25th anniversary in 2018 came the announcement that the company has been included in The Sunday Times Fast Track Profit 100 League table, which ranks the private UK businesses achieving fastest-growing profits. “We
were placed at number 60, along with only two other Welsh companies. It was a great surprise to make it into the list and our inclusion has certainly stirred a bit of interest from the rest of the business world,” John comments. Driven purely by altruistic sentiments, Burns has set an inspirational example for many other companies with its charitable activities. Recently, the company donated an astonishing 25 per cent of its profits to its own charity, the Burns Pet Nutrition Foundation, thus advancing a number of schemes undertaken by the organisation. John clarifies: “We have always given support to a mix of charities and local sports clubs, but in 2007, we set up our own charity to formalise these activities a little bit. In fact, for most of the time since, we continued to donate to other organisations, but about three years ago, we decided to change the nature of our charitable activities and do something ourselves, so we transformed the foundation into a community-interest company (CIO). “I made a decision that we should spend less of our revenue on marketing and advertising activities, directing more of it towards community activities, instead. We now often provide support