meet

Tilted Barn Pet Foods (formerly Farm Fresh Pet Foods), is owned by Nicole (Edmonton) and her business partner Kim (Carstairs). Wild Prairie founder Tanya Zurock chatted with Nicole to find out what it takes to build a pet food empire. Here’s how it went.

I don’t have a dog, but my cats both love your treats. How did you become an owner of a pet food company?

I was hired by the original founder as a summer student in 2005. My now-business partner, Kim, was a distributor of the products when I came on board. In 2007 the founder decided he wasn’t interested in pursuing the business. Kim and I were on a call discussing his decision and both said “What are we going to feed our dogs?! We should take it over… how hard could it be?” Haha what we wish we would have known!

Your company recently went through a name change and rebrand. Tell me about it and the reason behind it. There is a company in Florida with the same name that we had - Farm Fresh Pet Foods. We started to bump into them more and thought we would get ahead of any chance of litigation. We became Tilted Barn Pet Co. in September 2022. We LOVE the name. It is definitely more us. It’s fun and represents our Canadian prairie roots.

It’s a great name. And you know I appreciate and love all Canadian roots stories! Where do you sell your products?

Our treats are sold at specialty, independent and boutique pet stores across Canada and the US. We don’t sell direct to consumers, but some of our retail partners sell our treats online. Our target retailer is that place where they know your dog’s name, what allergies they have and make a fuss over them!

What’s the best part of your life as an entrepreneur?

The flexibility of my schedule and being in control of my own chaos. I love my job and adore the challenges my work presents me. It never feels like work. I’ve learned so much about myself –and found strengths I had no idea I possessed.

And the worst part of it?

I have a tough time shutting off or stepping away from work. There are always emails and when fires need to be put out, it’s me or Kim that need to jump to solve the issue. Work-life balance is a hard concept for me.

What do you love most about dogs?

I love that dogs are just happy to see you all the time! They have zero judgment. They’ll sit with you when you’re sad, they’re excited when you are joyful.

I’m curious to know what kind of dog you have.

We have a Cavapoochon named Nellie. She is a mix of a Poodle, Bichon and King Charles Cavalier. I had huge hopes of her being my dog and that she’d go everywhere with me, but it turns out that she’s a homebody and picked my husband as her person instead.

What are your challenges as a woman-owned business?

This past year I’ve been traveling a lot and I get asked “what does your husband do with the kids while you’re away?”. This blows my mind. It’s 2023. He parents. He does the same thing I would do if he were traveling for his job. Second challenge would be facing a lack of faith by some that we can achieve our goals. Kim and I have high aspirations, and we know we can hit our targets. We’re not impulsive and have put a lot of effort into our business plan. There is no reason we shouldn’t be taken seriously.

What’s next for Tilted Barn?

Right now we’re focused on growing sales and evolving the new brand into something next level. We’re launching a really flavourful limited-edition treat this summer that we know is going to fly off shelves. There’s really so much going on but we’re happy to keep it to ourselves until the time is right.