Often, we look to our pets to provide us with constant love and affection. They become our family members, our disability assistant, they guard us, and they stay loyal until the end of their short lived but fulfilling days. Caring for pets from youth to adulthood isn’t always an easy task, so how can we better the wellness of our pets?
Jeff Riman, CEO and Founder at KING KANINE offers his insight into his creation of a supplement and product company that offers alternative medicine to cats and dogs.
What King Kanine’s backstory?
I was a designer and product developer for most of my professional career. At one point, I was well known as a designer in the apparel space. I have had products seen all over the world and on numerous celebrities and musicians.
Having started some social media in the pet space in 2012, I began to hone in on the pet market for a specific breed of dog. I then started creating some products, and donating some of the earnings to dogs and dog groups in need. As I developed the first product, I already had a built in audience which helped catapult both sales and exposure.
KING KANINE had originally started with a pet deshedding tool called the “KING KOMB Ultimate Deshedding Tool” The tool was designed as a handleless deshedding tool that was super ergonomic and comfortable for the pet as well. As the product got more and more notoriety and sales increased, my team and I wanted to add additional products that would be a good fit to accompany the deshedding tool. We then worked with a company in Vermont to develop an all natural and organic shampoo for dogs.
Soon after, I talked with my friend, Oronde Gadsden who was a former NFL player for the Miami Dolphins regarding a very new all natural product that was great for pain and anxiety that also had powerful therapeutic properties. The product is called CBD short for Cannabidiol – was starting to gain exposure for helping retired football players with some of the symptoms they had due to concussions and pain from injuries in their career. I knew that this would be also really good for pets too, and from then on, KING KANINE was born. I realized, just like in humans, CBD can help to manage pain and anxiety as well as digestion. It had even showed promise in some cancer cases.
We immediately started formulating and developing our line of CBD products for pets that we ultimately called KING KALM CBD. Now we currently have about 14 products in total and will be launching 2-4 more in 2019. These range from our grooming tool, organic shampoo and a line of topical and orally dosed CBD products.
You have been working in your industry for many years and you have been successful at consistently performing at the highest levels. What are some of your strategies that could be helpful other emerging leaders?
What’s most unique about our company is how strictly my team and I test our products. We know that the CBD industry is pretty much a unregulated industry. It’s very upsetting to see what some of the billion dollar companies are selling that are actually making pets sick. We strive to have the best products and our motto is “for us it’s not about a ton of products, it’s more about a ton of quality.” This has been our thought process from the beginning.
Tell us something you discovered in your field that you feel we should all now about?
CBD and other usages of Cannabidiol really work to calm anxious pets. A recent 2018 pharmacokinetic and clinical study done by the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University has determined that “2 mg/kg of CBD twice daily can help increase comfort and activity in dogs with OA (osteoarthritis).” The study states further that “baseline scores showed a significant decrease in pain and increase in activity (p < 0.01) at week 2 and 4 during CBD treatment.”
What are pieces of advice that you would give in not only the business landscape but also for those entering the CBD space?
Be Active in Philanthropy:
It’s so important to stay true to your brand but also to live out in practice what the product does: it helps pets. At KING KANINE, we strive to do outreach and we make it a personal choice to give back. We get involved with rescue groups, specifically working with one through Zach Skow of Marley’s Mutts and New York Rescue
Our biggest drive of 2019 is to contribute more in-kind donations and to fundraise on behalf of charities to give back. We want to really focus on raising awareness for disabled dogs to get wheelchairs. Mobility is important to dogs, so we are really pushing that big campaign.
Be Aware
It’s important to know your field, your landscape and where your industry will be today as well as years from now. As many know, the upcoming legislation of the Farm Bill is really affecting CBD utilization. Under the DEA framework, CBD requires a doctor’s prescription, but under the Farm Bill it doesn’t. The bill puts the regulations of CBD products under the monitoring eye of the FDA. This would open a lot of doors for various CBD businesses; including care for dogs. The FDA has already considered some framework for marketing and selling of CBD products across state lines.