Amy Zalneraitis – Co-Founder of We Feed Raw on Building a Mission-Driven Brand and Leading the Pet Wellness Revolution

The Casey Adams Show

Listener.com Podcast Network

Business, Entrepreneurship

4.8 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today on The Casey Adams Show, I sit down with Amy Zalneraitis — Co-Founder and Chief Brand Officer of We Feed Raw, the fastest-growing raw dog food delivery company in the country. Originally founded by her sister Alissa, We Feed Raw was born out of a deep love for animals and a belief that dogs deserve biologically appropriate, nutrient-rich food. After Alissa’s passing in 2014, Amy made it her mission to carry on the brand’s legacy — and today, We Feed Raw is widely recognized as a leader in pet wellness. In this episode, Amy shares the emotional story behind the brand, how education and resilience fueled its growth, and why the pet food industry is undergoing a massive shift toward health-conscious, purpose-driven products.

Connect with Amy Zalneraitis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-zalneraitis-3048158/

Learn more about We Feed Raw: https://www.wefeedraw.com/

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to We Feed Raw
01:08 The Origin Story of We Feed Raw
03:56 The Impact of Personal Tragedy on Business
06:15 Rebranding and Growth of We Feed Raw
10:09 Navigating the World of Angel Investing
13:40 The Shift in Dog Food Industry
18:06 Challenges and Rewards of Educating Consumers
20:45 Transitioning Dogs to Raw Diets
25:11 The Science Behind Raw Feeding
26:35 The Science Behind Pet Nutrition
27:42 A Family Legacy of Animal Love
29:27 The Importance of Animal Welfare
30:41 Navigating Business Growth and Culture
33:33 Innovating with New Product Lines
38:22 Honoring a Sister's Legacy
43:14 Resilience in Entrepreneurship
46:45 Running: A Metaphor for Life and Business

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the Casey Adams show. Today we are joined by Amy Zalneratus, the co-founder
0:07.4	and chief brand officer of We Feed Raw. Amy, thank you so much coming to show today.
0:12.6	Thanks for having me, Casey. I'm happy to be here. Of course. And I'm equally as excited. You know,
0:18.4	when I was learning all about We Feed Rawl and in this story, I got to say,
0:23.9	not to just start off this episode on like an emotional note, but I was really touched by
0:28.1	just how you and your family and the business came about and how it's gotten to this point.
0:33.4	And I don't want to tell the story for the audience, but I just want to say it's such a beautiful brand and company that I'm so excited to talk with you about and to really hear your point of view. And once again, I want to say thank you for taking the time today to share the story of yourself, the business, and to really just dive into all things, we feed raw. So with that
0:55.1	said, for people that may not know, you know, what we feed raw is, you guys are the leading
1:00.2	provider of premium raw dog food. Where does this journey begin? Take us back to the beginning here.
1:08.1	Yeah, it's kind of a wild story as you touched on. So I never actually set out
1:15.1	to have this job. This wasn't a job I applied for. I didn't set out to be an entrepreneur.
1:21.0	This was my younger sister, Alyssa's company. She was a huge animal lover. We were raised by
1:27.0	animal lovers. We both grew up to be animal lover. We were raised by animal lovers.
1:27.8	We both grew up to be animal lovers.
1:29.9	She really hardcore animal lover.
1:32.4	She was always rescuing dogs.
1:35.7	And she had a bunch of rescue dogs and she wanted to feed them better.
1:42.2	So she discovered raw feeding and became an expert of sort of making her own raw meals
1:47.1	for her own dogs and then started making them for friends dogs and then friends of friends.
1:51.2	And, you know, like a lot of these sort of, you know, stories that you hear of companies
1:56.8	and how they came to be, it was just not her setting out to, you know, start a business,
2:03.6	but the business opportunity presented itself later.
	...

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