A freeze-dried single-protein treat is one of the easier products to build a pet brand on. One ingredient, no formulation work, no recipe to defend, and a category customers already understand. The hard parts are volume, cash and packaging — not the product.
There are three routes onto a shelf. Picking the wrong one for your stage is the most expensive mistake available to you.
Route 1: Buy finished bulk and repack
You buy freeze-dried protein already dried and tested, and you portion it into your own bags under your own label.
- Best when: you are launching, testing three SKUs to see which sells, or your volume is under a processing minimum.
- Upside: lowest commitment. No prep space, no dryer slot, no yield risk — you know exactly what a kilogram costs you because you bought a kilogram.
- Downside: highest cost per finished kilo, and you are packing by hand until it hurts.
Most brands should start here and stop apologising for it. Sell through one purchase order before you commit to a production run.
Route 2: Toll freeze drying your own raw material
You source and prep the raw protein; a processor dries it and hands it back.
- Best when: you have a raw supply relationship worth protecting, a spec that off-the-shelf product does not match, or volume above the minimum — typically from 50 kg wet weight for a one-off run.
- Upside: best cost per finished kilo at volume, and full control of the input.
- Downside: you carry the yield risk. Pricing is quoted on wet weight in, not dry weight out, so if your material yields worse than you assumed, that lands on your margin, not the processor's.
Route 3: Full private label
Prep, drying, testing and retail-ready packaging all handled, your brand on the bag.
- Best when: you are a marketing and distribution business, not a manufacturing one — which describes most successful small pet brands.
- Upside: you spend your time selling. Cases arrive ready for a retailer.
- Downside: highest per-unit processing cost, and packaging decisions have to be made before the run, not after.
The number that decides everything: yield
Freeze drying removes water, and meat is mostly water. Expect finished weight somewhere around a quarter to a third of wet weight — roughly three to four kilograms of raw material for one kilogram of finished treat, depending on the protein and the cut.
Build your cost stack in this order and the whole business becomes legible:
- Raw material cost per wet kilogram
- Divide by your yield to get raw cost per finished kilogram
- Add processing (quoted on wet weight, so convert it to the finished basis too)
- Add packaging per bag, and labour if you are packing
- Add inbound and outbound freight
- Now apply your wholesale margin, and then the retailer's
Brands get hurt at step two. If you price off wet-weight cost and forget the yield divisor, every bag you sell loses money in a way that takes two quarters to notice.
Packaging, honestly
Freeze-dried product fails on moisture, not time. It needs a genuine moisture barrier and a real seal — heat-sealed Mylar rather than a pretty stand-up pouch with a weak zipper. A resealable closure is worth it because your customer will open the bag hundreds of times.
Two practical notes. Freeze-dried treats are extremely light for their volume, so a bag sized by weight looks alarmingly empty on a shelf — size the bag to the volume and state the net weight clearly. And order packaging early: custom printed film has a lead time that has killed more launch dates than production ever has.
Before your first run, get these sorted
- Labelling requirements. Pet food and treat labelling in Canada has rules on ingredient declaration, net quantity and identifying the responsible party, and bilingual requirements may apply to your market. Confirm your specific obligations with the CFIA or a labelling consultant before you print film — not after.
- Export, if it is on the roadmap. Selling into the United States brings its own facility registration and permit requirements. Decide early, because it can affect how your product is made and documented, not just how it is shipped.
- Batch records. Ask your processor what documentation comes back with each run. Water activity results on every batch are what make a shelf-stability claim defensible if a retailer or a regulator asks.
- A realistic first order. One SKU, one size, enough to sell through in a quarter. Three SKUs at launch is how new brands end up with two thirds of their cash sitting in a garage.
Working with us
We run industrial freeze dryers in St. Catharines, Ontario, on raw protein and pet treats only, with water activity tested on every batch and single proteins run on dedicated cycles. Brands work with us four ways: contract freeze drying, co-packing and private label, buying finished bulk protein, and help getting a label and a launch together.
Start with services and pricing, read how a toll run actually works, or go straight to an account application — reviewed within two business days. If route 1 is where you are, the catalogue is at wholesale freeze-dried proteins.