Fab Food Plant

A blank slate



CHAPTER 1
Room to grow


KLN Family Brands wasn’t looking for just another plant when it partnered with CRB for a new facility.

The company, which operates Tuffy’s Pet Foods and now Tuffy’s Treat Company, set out to complete this project in a way that felt right for employees, for the community, and for the co-manufacturing partners and distributors who count on Tuffy's. The result is a flagship project for one of the most progressive and most trusted companies in the pet treat industry. KLN products include candy, salty snacks and pet food.

Three generations of Nelsons have operated the company, starting with Darrell “Tuffy” Nelson, who established Tuffy’s Pet Foods in 1964. He operated as a feed store and hatchery primarily centered on poultry. The focus then moved from livestock to pets. Between the 1970s and 1990s, the company added salty snacks and confections to their product line and rebranded as KLN Family Brands with Tuffy’s son Kenny Nelson (who started at the business at a very young age, graduated from college and returned) as CEO.

Darryl sold the pet side of the business in the ’70s, as he was retiring. It created a drive in his son to start a candy and confectionery division, and Kenny’s Candy & Confections still thrives today. In 2001, KLN purchased Tuffy’s Pet Foods to bring it back within the family, and today, Charlie Nelson, Darryl’s grandson, occupies the CEO’s chair.

“The company is very flexible, very aggressive but also very much a small-town, family owned company that is really the roots of the company and wants to maintain the small town feel—the people are the most important,” says Brian Garlick, general manager of Tuffy’s.

Tuffy’s Pet Food Company manufactures dry pet food under names including NutriSource, PureVita, Supreme and Natural Planet. The company decided it was time to grow the treat side of the business and brought in design and construction firm CRB. The new Delano plant manufactures semi-moist treats, co-extruded treats, long-lasting chews, grill-marked treats and dental treats.

Kristen Kazarian, managing editor
Photos courtesy of Tuffy’s Treat Company

Tuffy’s Pet Foods Company, a multimillion dollar enterprise, invested in another small town for its treat business with a greenfield build

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The new facility features two entrances, one in the foreground of this photo and another at the far end, to ensure that personnel never cross between the pre- and post-kill segregation zones.

Chapter 1: Room to grow

The mainstay on the Tuffy’s side has been its dry food business, which has seen tremendous growth over the years, particularly its NutriSource brand and the co-manufacturing and co-packing for others.

“From the treat side, we really didn’t have the real estate within our Perham facility to continue to grow that business, so it’s been pretty flat year over year. And we didn’t go seek new business nor have the capacity to grow our own brand within our existing plant,” says Garlick.

He adds that the company needed to be able to grow that business and grow with their partners. If Tuffy’s was planning on keeping it to dry food only, they couldn’t help their manufacturing partners who wanted to grow the other parts of their business.

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Building near the existing plant would be convenient, but employment in Perham was at an all-time high. “It was important that our growth pattern would not create additional stress on our community. It was a major consideration—yes, we want to grow and help our community grow, but there’s a point where we’re only causing more stress because of our need or push to grow as rapidly as our ownership and company wants to,” says Garlick.

He says that if they were to continue to try to grow that business with future expansions in Perham, they were going to push against those labor challenges that are out there.

Lessons from other divisions

So what did you perhaps take from the other businesses within KLN for this build?

“To share some best practices from a flexibility perspective was the major goal, and being modular was important. The treat world has not always looked at large runs. You’re not selling containers at a time. It’s a custom market, and it’s very similar to the candy world; it’s not necessary huge volumes. It’s unique and customer driven, as each customer wants to put their unique twist on it. We took some things from the playbook that were successful on the candy side. We didn’t mimic it intentionally from the candy side; it was more like best practices,” Garlick says.

Mark Sailer, director of engineering at KLN Brands, adds that Tuffy’s leveraged good relationships with some OEMs through the snack food side as well.

“We had opportunities to partner with some of our snack food partners on the treat side of the business,” Sailer says. “With people we trust and know are adaptable and flexible and can move with us. We’ve had some adaptions along the way and it’s been really good to have these partners in place to do that with us.”

The Tuffy’s team realizes that a dog isn’t going to the store to buy a bag of treats itself; its owner is. “And so understanding the human trends, whether it’s the snacks or candy, allows us to have a view into what trends could be coming in the pet market in some cases. Looking beyond manufacturing, we’re trying to leverage the sales, marketing, graphics etc. that are under our umbrella, to better suit the pet food market,” explains Garlick.

And just as Kenny had once balked at closing the legacy plant, Charlie couldn’t see himself recruiting personnel away from small local businesses in Perham that depended on qualified staff.

They looked for a community similar to Perham that needed a large, new employer, “where we just really like the people, we like the feel, and we gain a new labor market for us to tap into,” says Garlick.

Tuffy’s found what it was looking for three hours down the road, in the town of Delano. It’s close enough to Perham to gain support from a staff resource, as the two companies are still in each other’s backyards to help each other out. It added the ability to get moving on the treat business that they hadn’t been able to do in the past. The new facility allows nearly 500% more treat capacity than the Perham facility.

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