When you’re thrown in, you swim.
How Amy Zalneraitis scaled We Feed Raw into a category leader.
It started as a small kitchen operation, hand-delivering meals to local dog owners in the Texas heat. No fancy warehouse. No marketing team. No plan to take on the billion-dollar pet food industry.
Then, in an instant, everything changed.
Amy Zalneraitis found herself holding the keys to a business she’d never planned to run — in one of the most complex, unforgiving categories in DTC: cold chain logistics, national shipping, and entrenched competitors with decades of dominance.
What happened next? She didn’t just keep the business alive. She scaled it into the leading direct-to-consumer raw pet food brand in the U.S. And along the way, she discovered that growing a company changes you just as much as it changes the market you serve.
In this episode, Amy shares how she:
Navigated cold chain logistics — and avoided costly mistakes
Built a brand with an ethos strong enough to win over a skeptical market
“Panic learned” her way through fundraising, operations, and scaling challenges she never saw coming
At its core, this is more than a story about pet food. It’s about pairing creativity with operational excellence, staying bold in the face of entrenched competition, and knowing when to reinvent yourself — and your business — to keep growing.
Whether you’re a founder scaling your first product, a brand strategist looking for inspiration, or just someone who loves a good underdog story (pun intended), this one’s for you.
Connect with Amy:
We Feed Raw Instagram
Amy's LinkedIn
WeFeedRaw's Affiliate Program
