Canines are our passion. They are our addiction. They are our way of life right down to the very core and without them we would be lost. The canines of this world really are something to behold. They assist us at work, they accompany us at home, and they perform for us in the field. No matter where we go, they are by our side. Canines really are a ride or die, and for that we are grateful.
This podcast will showcase working canines of various breeds and disciplines as we search for those canines and their handlers who are always striving to be the best at what they do. Those who are always grinding. Those who are always pushing the limits. Those who are always dogging. Join us on our adventures as it is sure to be a wild ride. I'm your host, Bryce Matthews. And I'm your co-host, Stephen Basham. And this, this is Semper Doggen.
The Semper Doggen podcast is proudly presented to you by Froggy Bottom Outdoors. Froggy Bottom Outdoors is the newest outdoor and hunting supply, habitat management, and livestock feed provider in the Midwest. With a wide variety of products, a unique business model, and a dedicated team of individuals who are eager to provide their customers with an unparalleled shopping experience, you will not have to search any further than Froggy Bottom Outdoors.
With brands such as Garmin, Yoder Nylon, Banks Hunting Blinds, Razor Hunting Gear, Purina Mills, ComBok Feeds, Anuksha, Real World Products, and many more, Froggy Bottom Outdoors has you covered from the farm to the woods. Visit froggybottomoutdoors.com today and follow them on Facebook to see how they can help you. Not finding what you're looking for online? No problem. Feel free to give the store a call at 765-330-2098.
The team at Froggy Bottom Outdoors is excited to get to know you and will be glad to answer any questions you may have. Guys, tonight is going to be a very, very fun and informative podcast. So we all know that if you're going to have hounds, if you're going to have dogs, if you're going to have any canine, they got to have some fuel. And the way that they get that fuel is eating some dog kibble. So we've got Brandon White from Next Level joining us tonight.
Him and Basham are going to sit down with me and we are going to dive into what dog, just dog food in general, like what makes dog food? How is the, how is dog food made? What ingredients go into it? Why, and why are these ingredients chosen? We're going to dive deep into this and I want to say that if you guys haven't and you want to get another perspective on this, go check out Jason Duby's podcast on the W Podcast.
You know, Jason is a good friend of mine and he's always said, a rising tide lifts all ships. So Brandon did a podcast with them a couple of weeks ago over on the W Podcast and I want you guys to go check it out after this one so that if there's something that we don't cover and they did, you get a well balanced information of dog food through your podcast platform. So Basham, thanks for joining us. Glad to have you. Yes sir. Oh yeah. From Gulf shores. Look out.
I thought your room looked a little tropical or beachy, I should say. It's a little beachy and you know, I'm a little, I'm a little gloating right now. But we've had a good time, took the boy out on a dolphin cruise and went jet skiing and went down to the beach to get some seashells and just spending a little family time since you know I've been in Elizabethtown working for the last four or five months. So just came down here, spending a little bit of family time. Yeah, man.
We're glad to have you. Brandon, thanks for taking time out of your schedule to join us, man. I know you are super busy. You bet. You bet. No, I'm looking forward to it. I'm in Indianapolis, just north of the circle. So I'm on my way to Kalamazoo, Michigan to attend the UKC premiere. We have the opportunity to sponsor a hound specialty, a new thing that they got on Thursday.
So I'm going to get there tomorrow and then I'm going to go see some retail customers, family farm at home, Froggy Bob, some of those guys are going to go visit some of those folks this week while we're out and about. Yeah, man. Awesome. So you are, I mean, you're on the road a ton. Like I feel like every time I talk to you on the phone, we probably talk once a week, and I feel like you're always somewhere. You're always doing something. Yeah. Last week I was in Texas, Tennessee and Oklahoma.
This week, Indianapolis, Michigan. Next week I'll be in Connecticut. Yeah. So it's about 285 nights a year I'm gone. So that's just what it takes, man, to drive a brand. So that's a lot. That is dedication. And we're going to get into this, but you've been with Next Level from the beginning. You're actually with Next Level before Next Level was a thing. Yeah. Yeah, we come from a previous life and another brand that Scott and Antoine owned and joined up.
We've been with them about 10 years now, but after that company sold, had to take a two-year hiatus and had to go do something else. But I started back with Scott and Antoine in December of 21, right before they started breaking ground on the US Pet Food plant. US Pet Food is our company. Now we have two brands, Next Level and Stratis. But yeah, it was there day one, employee number three. That's awesome. Scott and Antoine were number one and two. Nice man. I love it. I love it.
So Brandon, like we don't, Brassman, I don't need you to give us any credibility, but for the listeners, you are a houndsman. You're not just a dog food salesman. I'm a Cunninghound guy. Oh, look at that. He's got a tattoo of a dog twin. Look at that. Hey, I mean, does yours look like mine? I got one too. No, mine's old school. I was one of the first guys to have one, I think, many years ago. He did his in the, he did his in the kitchen with, you know, a little needle. The kids do it.
Yeah. Oh man. Yeah. So you're, you're not just a dog food sales rep. You're not just somebody out there who can recite things and, you know, sell ice to an Eskimo. You are a houndsman first and you have a passion for these dogs. Yeah. You know, I grew up with Cunninghounds. My uncles, you know, they had blue ticks and I, my first Cunninghounds was a black and tans. A lot of folks don't know, but a guy by the name of Harold Bailey from down around Aurora, Missouri, Jinkum, Missouri.
If you're a black and tan person, you may know that name, Harold Bailey. He was through marriage was a great uncle of mine and he gave me my first puppy and I was first, second grade and never had anything really that was big time. I couldn't really push and then graduate high school at the army, come home and, and, you know, I just want to get back into it. So I bought a, bought a blue tick Cunninghound pup and, and that was, that's being on my arm there.
Ran him for a while, made him a dual grand night and had a great time with it. Bought another dual grand night female, raising puppies. Was a truck driver, believe it or not, for, for American Freightways. We sold out the FedEx freight and started doing some demos for another dog food company and I went, man, I want to go sell dog food for a living. This is fun. You get paid to go to hunts and the dog shows and to talk to people.
And so an opportunity to come up FedEx had a buyout and I took a leap of faith and got a job selling dog food. And when I competition hunted some of your listeners might know I wanted to win and I knew the real book. I wasn't going to try to cheat nobody on purpose, but you better know the real book too. And selling dog food, it's awful hard to compete with somebody and then try to sell dog food.
So I backed out of the competition hunts, just pleasure hunted and started showing my dogs, got them to show dogs and stuff like that. And that's a lot of competition there too. But my, the only dog I've got that now is a grand night or not a grand night, but just a grand champion spot East 14. His mother Rita was number one blue ticket 2010 at UKC. She passed away a year too ago at the age of 16. But so now I just travel all the time and selling dog food.
But you know, I do have a passion for the coon hounds. I'm a hound guy. I mean, coon hunters are my kind of people, Fox hunters, beagle hunters. That's just where I come from. So yeah, that's awesome. You know, he said you spent some time in the army too. So thank you. Thank you for your service. You know, here at Semper dog and that's, you know, we're all about promoting and saying thank you to those guys. So, you know, he's a hound hunter guys. He's a vet. He is our people. That's right.
So, all right. So Brandon, let's, let's break this down for, for the newbie who just got a dog who doesn't know anything about it. Let's break down the process of making dog food specifically with the next level brand. So I know that you guys are very, what's the word I want to look for? You're very transparent with how your product is made.
If you guys have followed next level for any amount of time on Facebook, Instagram, any of their social medias, you have seen the next level plant be built down in Texas. They have walked you through breaking ground, pouring concrete, putting up walls, putting in conveyors. They have walked us through everything and been super transparent about it.
So, let's go from the moment that a farmer harvest a product out of the field, if you, let's say your grain or wheat, whatever it is from the moment they get to your facility, how does that work? Let's walk through the dog food manufacturing process. Yep. So, so we have a procurement department and they are top notch. We have vendors that supply us all of our ingredients. You know, there's no secret sauce really.
All of us pet food manufacturers buy our ingredients from the same medicine cabinet, all the same vendors. But at our facility, it's gated off in the facility, truck pulls up, they have to call in and they get verified that they're supposed to be there. They come in, they go across the scale and they weigh in and weigh out, across the scale, get weighed in and then they drive around the facility. We have a, we have the onsite lab that is detached from the plant.
So it's a two story lab, the trucks roll in, the drivers go out and unroll their tarps and then they go inside a break room. Our lab technicians come outside and they probe those, those trucks, those ingredients in a sample. They'll inside and we've got a machine, there's only like three of them in United States. It's about $350,000 by this machine and it breaks it down. It tests the rice for carcinogenetics, carcinogenics.
It tests the zinc levels, the copper levels, the peroxide values, which is the freshness in the meat meals. You know, you don't, for instance, it is like a 20, if a peroxide values at 20 or more, it is dead, dead, dead. You don't want that. So we try to get ours as fresh as we can and we're coming in at 1% a little bit less, which means the shelf life is going to last much longer and it's going to be such a fresh product that's going to taste well.
But if anything does not meet our specs that we have, the trucks get turned around and they leave our facility. Everything passes, the driver moves up. If it's a grain, we'll use millet, sorghum and rice, no corn, wheat or soy in our products, but go to the grain receiving bins and get unloaded. If it's a meat meal, they go inside an enclosed area where we can receive eight trucks an hour, which is a lot. You can only make what you receive.
So if you're a company that has a very small receiving pit and you're trying to produce a lot of product to a lot of mass retailers, you can't do it. You're going to cut corners and that's when problems happen, but we can receive eight trucks an hour and we can produce that. Then it goes into storage bins. We've got 20, 27, I think they are 74 ton storage bins that we can store our meals and then our grains. And then as we make it, it all gets batched up and pre-mixed.
It's like a big mixing bowl, so to speak. It goes into a pre-mixer and then into a hammer meal. Okay. I got a question. Did I hear you right? You said there's no corn in any of your formulas? No, no corn, no wheat, no soy. Okay. So before you go any further, and I hope I don't derail you, can you explain to the listener why you guys don't put those in your feeds? Yeah, absolutely.
Corn, you know, corn, I sold against it for a lot of years and there was the big thing and I used to say it too, that corn causes heat and you know, causes the dog to get hotter faster. Corns really get energy source, but the problem is you have so many toxins that come in with corn, aflatoxin and so on and so forth. So and you just couldn't take that risk. So we felt like millet and sorghum was lower in the toxicity and lower in the sugar levels, blood sugar levels. Think about a diabetic.
You want to keep the sugar levels low. Okay. So a little knowledge nugget, where is the sorghum capital of the world at? Texas. Negative. All right, tell me. Hancock County, Kentucky. Kentucky. My hometown, baby. There you go. I didn't know that. That is the sorghum capital of the world. If you Google it, you Google sorghum capital of the world, it'll show you Hancock County, Kentucky. Kentucky. Yes sir.
A lot of things in Kentucky, and we'll talk about this too, are what we call our VX advantage. We use the ingredients from Altech, which is out of Kentucky. Let's get into that. Let's get into that later. I got that on the note. Let's get into the VX. Okay. So that's why we didn't use any corn. What about the no wheat, no soy? You know, those are just what we feel to be cheap fillers. They cause a lot of mess in the kennels, not a whole lot of nutritional value there, really.
Same with the rice bran, you know, for deer, rice bran works really well, but for dogs, no, not so much. Gotcha. Okay. So sorry to deride you, but I'm going to have some questions during this thing. You're fine. And back up just a second. When you think about making a dog food nugget, a kebab, think about meatloaf. You know, my mom, when she made a meatloaf, she had, you know, your hamburger and crackers or bread or whatever, oatmeal to hold up together.
So you get your protein source, which is your meat mills and then your carbohydrates, which is your sorghum, rice, peas, whatever, to help hold that together. So all that's been put up in big storage bins and it comes down into a pre-mixer and then goes into a hammer mill. A hammer mill, if you don't know what that is, I feel like most town guys do. It's imagine a coffee can with a rod through it with little bitty hammers on it that spins around and beats all up into a powder.
And we grind all that stuff through a 360 force screen to get it really, really fine. A lot of dog food companies use a 460 force or a 560 force, so it's not as fine of a powder. If it's a bigger screen, you can make more tons per hour. We are more worried about quality, not quantity. So we'll slow it down just a little bit, right through a smaller screen and get a fine powder. You know, some of that into the extruder, which is the process where the magic happens.
That's where you get steam, pressure, and hot water to put it all together. And then those carbohydrates pop. Think about popcorn. If your carbohydrates don't pop very well, you're going to see them again. So if you take a handful of popcorn kernels and you just throw them in your mouth and you swallow them, you're going to see them again and you're going to have a belly ache. You pop that into popcorn, you don't ever see that again. It digests very, very well.
So by grinding it into a small powder, getting all the carbohydrates to pop, we get good digestion, whether it be on the Next Level brand or the Stratus brand. It goes from there into the dryer, fat coater, packaging, and on out the door. That is where the magic happens. And you can look at the Facelift video Scott put up a few weeks ago. He gives you a full tour and shows it very plainly, how that stuff's done. Pretty neat.
Make sure you head on over to their Facebook page and take a look at that video, guys. I've watched it a few times, watched plenty of them following them. Hit that follow button. Make sure you are following Next Level as we go along with them. Yeah. You know, it's something we started that placement page a little while back, but we're right at 80,000 followers right now. So that's pretty good.
Yeah. And you know, one thing that I like about the Next Level, not just for their transparency, is like you guys service all ranges of dogs. You know, not it's not just, you know, for your medium sized hound. I mean, you guys have puppy formulas, you've got, you've got all the giant breed formulas. And I kind of want to get in on that because there might be people listening to this, you know, who are running a giant breed.
And I want to get into like kind of what separates your guys' giant breed formula from some others. Yep. You know, we have four puppy foods as you talked about, you know, all live stages. And how you classify dog food, whether it be all live stages or if it's just an adult only, is by the calcium levels. The FDA puts out a limit of no more than 2.5% calcium is allowed in the bag of dog food. So, if it's going to be the large breed puppies, 70 pounds or more, it's got to be at 1.7% or less.
Got to be a minimum of 1.1%. If you look at back at dog food bags, a lot of them will say minimum 1.1%. Well, not just about the minimum. It's the maximum that you need to worry about the most. Sorry about that. I had a computer glitch. But so on our products, all of them are going to be 1.7 or less of calcium. Why do you care about calcium? Well, the show dog people tell you they'll know that calcium causes growth deficiencies. You get dogs to get rickets and start breaking over.
They get all wonky in their legs. But what it does for all dogs is it blocks the absorption of zinc. And you need zinc for skin and coat. So if you got a dog that sheds easily or they have skin allergies or something like that, more likely they're feeding a high calcium dog. Calcium levels in dog foods are the maximum amount is 2.5%. And you get over 2.5% and this calcium starts blocking the absorption of zinc. You need zinc for the skin and coat.
So if you have a dog that sheds a lot or they have a dull, dull, uh, sheen to them, they probably need more zinc. A lot of dog people think that their dogs have allergic reaction to a product because they're scratching all the time. More than likely, they just have a zinc deficiency and then they're having to feed too much calcium and not getting absorbed in the zinc. So we focus on that 1.7 or less in all of our products. That's interesting. I didn't, I mean, I've thought about that.
So like what about dogs with allergies? You know, you'll hear a lot of people say, Oh, my dogs have allergies and they're allergic to, they're allergic to chicken or they're allergic to this or allergic to that. What do you guys think about that? And do you have a formula for those dogs? We, we, we do. You know, we got our, our ocean cats, which is a multi-grain millet sorghum rice and a Manhattan case of salmon meal. And we have a grain free salmon river, which is salmon salmon and mitten fish.
High, high levels of omega three and six. Okay. So that is good for the skin coat. So men Hayden fish, I've seen that on a couple different brands of dog food lately. What is, what is, what is men Hayden fish and why is it not just fish or what? Break that down. Men Hayden fish is a type of fish that comes from the ocean. It's a smaller fish and you get the whole fish. A lot of fish meals, if you say salmon, you don't get the whole salmon. Most of the salmon is going to go to human consumption.
Okay. So if you buy into the marketing that you see in some bags that show a picture of a salmon filet or a chicken breast, come on guys, we're smart on that. That is not going into the pet food. We get what's left over. So, okay. That's why you get higher levels of calcium, right? Because chick filets did a better job taking meat off the bone. Bryce's favorite place, Bruce Chris steakhouse has taken more steak, more meat off the bone.
So we're getting more calcium mass because we're getting more bone meal. We have to buy a premium product to keep that lower down. We use a product called hydrolyzed chicken to mitigate the calcium levels. Hydrolyzed chicken is a laying hen, an old laying hen that she's done laying eggs. Her meat is too tough to go to human consumption. So they take that chicken where we get our chicken from and they feed it enough water for 12 hours to clean out its digestive system.
And they put the whole bird in a stainless steel vat and they use natural enzymes and enzymatically digest that. Hydrolyzed means digested. And so therefore you're helping break down that chicken into a paste and another unique fact about that is once it's already pre-digested, hydrolyzed, it's no longer an allergen. So if you do have a chicken allergy, you won't do that. Okay. I didn't know that. So that's hydrolyzed chicken you said? Hydrolyzed chicken.
Okay. So if I get onto nextlevelpetfood.com, so I'm on your website and I click on a bag, is it going to say hydrolyzed chicken somewhere? Yep. On the ingredient list it says hydrolyzed chicken. Interesting. I did not know that. And after it's hydrolyzed, it's no longer an allergen. Right. Hydrolyzed means digested. So if you're looking at our Hypro 30 LS, which is the number one seller, hydrolyzed chicken is right behind Manhattan Fish Meal and before the peas. Okay. I'm going to look this up.
The Hypro 30 LS. So I'm on the website and I click on, there it is, right there. And that LS, a little unique fact that LS stands for large and small. That it's available for all, all life stages, including puppies that mature be more than 70 pounds. Large and small. I thought that the LS was for life stages. Look at this. I'm learning all kinds of things. Large and small. And so what that's telling you is that our calcium levels at 1.7% are low.
So you could feed that Hypro 30 LS to your grandma's Shih Tzu and you could also, you could also. All the way up to a Borble. Feed it up to a Borble. You could. You could. Yeah. And our giant breed puppy food, it's, you know, it's, it's at 1.5% maximum guarantee. It's just a bigger kibble. They could eat the 30 LS, but the kibble is smaller. And for those giant breed puppies, we felt like a bigger kibble would be better. Slows them down and makes them crunch it and actually chew on it.
So they're just swallowing it. And that is a big kibble. Like it's what the size of a quarter? It was, we first started on the giant breeds, but we reduced it down to 20 millimeter. So that's the size of the nickel. Okay. What? And there's videos up there on social media. And you can listen to the dog's crunch, you know, help clean their teeth a little bit, but really just slows them down. Digesting for a dog does not begin in the mouth like it does for us humans. It begins in the belly.
But those dogs just swallow, swallow, swallow. Well, then you're, you're, you're, you're increasing your risk for bloat that way. So if they have slowed down, actually crunch it, it breaks it down a little easier for them. Okay. So if you started out at the cable about the size of a quarter and now you've, you've changed it to about the size of a nickel, that tells me, and this is just Bryce Matthews opinion.
That tells me that you guys got some feedback from customers and that you listen to that. Bigger kibble was breaking up, was breaking down a little bit. And there's nothing worse than buying a bag of dog food and getting to the bottom of it and you see a bunch of fines that need to bob your bag of powder. Nothing wrong with it, but it's more accurate. It's not very eye appealing.
And what we were finding in that bigger 25 millimeter is that it was kind of breaking up and not being very consistent. And we're all about quality control and consistency. You know, there's brands out there that are, that have kibble in it. That's yellow, purple, red and green and all different shapes and sizes. You know why they do that? Because it's consistently inconsistent. You never know when something's wrong. Ours you're going to know the difference to something wrong.
That's a marketing scheme. Like that I would never have thought about it. Like consistently, consistently inconsistent makes the consumer feel warm and fuzzy though. Because their food looks the same all the time because they cannot tell the difference. Right. But now far as is off a little bit, the color is a fat coat. The butter was just a little bit off or the kibble size little off. They're going to make, they're going to, Hey, you change your formulation. No, not really.
But that's interesting. So okay, so let's go into good calories versus bad calories because one of the hot topics, especially, and we're going to get into other hot topics, but at the top of the list, especially in the coon hand world and the hound world in general is K cows per cup. And you called me one day, I was driving and you said, Bryce, I've got it. I've got the analogy to explain K cows and, and I've got it. And I was like, well, throw it at me.
So let the listeners in on what you told me that day because it has stuck with me and I like it. Well, you know, K cows is a big topic. You know, several brands are really promoting how many K cows they got per cup the next time. You know, we all measure the K cows exactly the same as supposed to. And I just got to thinking about how can I explain that to people who would understand it? Because the number is more important than the number. And so I just Googled it and you all do the same thing.
If you go to McDonald's and you, you order a large Big Mac value meal, you get a Big Mac, large fry and a large Coke. You're at 1,350 calories for that meal. And that sounds great. You go to Texas Roadhouse Steakhouse, you get a 10 ounce sirloin, a side of rice and a side of broccoli. You're at 850 calories K cows per cup. What do you think that you know, Brett Favre was going to eat? He was going to eat the sirloin, you know, the 850 calories or the 1,350 a Big Mac or a sirloin.
I mean, you're sitting in Indianapolis and you just compared it to Brett Favre. You could have used Peyton Manning. I mean, how about Peyton Manning? Like goodness gracious. I just, Brett Favre, I watched his Hollis, Penguin Ducks speech today. Oh my God. The disrespect, the disrespect. I mean, you're talking to two Hoosiers sitting in Indianapolis. You got the picture of the Indy 500 behind you. You're a Hoosier now. You don't live in Kentucky no more, buddy. Wildcat blue and blue, baby.
Okay. I'm sorry. Hey, at least don't say Dax Prescott. Hey, you're wearing a cowboy hat. You might as well be a cowboy fan. That means you're good all the way up until the end and then you just fall on your face. Okay. Sorry. I 100% derailed that train, but I had to. But you know what I'm talking about, I mean, thinking about these athletes, these pinhounds guys are athletes. They're professional athletes.
You know, we're spending anywhere from a thousand to $20,000 for a dog, you know, hauling it around in a 50, $60,000 truck, thousand dollar dog box, you know, a thousand dollar tracking system and we want to feed it $20 bag of dog food. They don't work that way.
You know, 30 seconds, 15 seconds is the difference between going home with a brand new truck or going home broke and you want to get every benefit you can get, but just those pro athletes are not going to go eat McDonald's and then go to work. They're going to go eat a nice clean meal. So what makes those numbers are more important than the numbers itself. If you want more than 850 calories, eat another half a piece of sirloin. Now you're well over that, but you have a good clean diet.
Yeah, I like it. What you got, Basher? Well, speaking of which, you know, obviously me and Bryce, especially we dabble in the competition hunting world. And I think you would agree that competitively hunting dogs versus, you know, just a lab that sits on your porch, they need different, they need different things. They need different things for the energy. They need a different amount.
So coming from a coon hunter that also deals with dog food, talk to us a little bit about what you would feed in your line and why as far as competitively hunting. And we're not even talking about that pleasure hunting. We're talking about that guy that goes in, you know, for instance, like me, Friday night, you know, I hunted two hours, went back to the club for about an hour and then had to go back out for another two hour hunt.
I mean, you're talking four hours of hunting in one night, you know, cut between, you know, a little break to go back to the club. But you know, the energy that's needed for a dog to be able to compete like that. Just talk about, you know, what is in that formula that you have and which one you would feed. Well, you know, it all starts with conditioning. You can't have the fine physical physique like I've got and you show up on a Friday night and expect to go four hours.
We know a lot a lot of money and time went into that physique a lot. So you've got to condition your dog just like you do it like an athlete does. You got to condition your dog. You got to hunt them when it's hot, hunt them when it's cold. So number one, you've got to condition your dog. And every dog is different. The three of us here, you know, Bryce could probably eat five snicker bars, never gain a pound. I smell one and I gain 10, you know, or so everybody's a little different.
You know, dogs really can't process more than 30 percent protein anyway. So anything over that, they're going to go right to the kidneys and go down to the urine. So my favorite, I feed, I like a 24 20. Your protein is build your muscle. Your fat is your fuel. A 20 percent, 20 percent fat is a lot of fuel to go. We've got a we've got a formula called performance. It's got 850 milligrams of glucose.
A lot of dog food companies you look at, they say with glucose, I mean, and you look at the back of the bag, it's got 300 milligrams per kilogram. That's not really much of anything. It's kind of a pandemic. And when we hunt those dogs, those four hours at a time, we've all seen them the next morning, they come crawling out of the doghouse or do we get home and four o'clock in the morning, we leave in a dog box till seven or eight, go get them out and they come crawling up to the store.
They're all stoked, stowed up as we call it. The cost me helps prevent that. And so the higher levels you can get the better. And we've got one a new product now called hero salute. It's 850 milligrams in the coast. I mean, it's 28 18. First ingredient is Manhattan fish. So the omega three and sixes are very high. So healthy skin and coat, a lot of great benefits to that product. Yeah, I am so glad he brought up that formula because that's that that leads me to my next one. But go ahead, Bryce.
You got it. So yeah, yeah. So I was actually going to ask you to elaborate a little bit on where that came from. What came in the makings? Like what what was your thought? What was next level thought process when it came to the hero salute? And then why it meant so much to you guys to be able to launch it because and I could be wrong. I'm not a dog food follower very well. So I but I think that you guys might be the first ones to really come out with something like that.
Yeah. The hero salute is something about Scott and Antoine, the owners of US Pet Food. They're very patriotic. Scott also owns has a flight museum and he honors the veterans that lot of World War Two planes is now some Vietnam helicopters. They have rings down there for the World War Two pilots, Vietnam pilots that come down and he flies around.
It's just it's really something to see to watch these guys that have flown that actual airplane, that actual helicopter come back and to be able to pre live that again and then see that find that brotherhood and not only just the military guys, those those those Scott and Antoine, they support the military, the firefighters, the police officers, very, very, very proud to be an American people and company. We all are. And so the hero salute just an awesome name and wanted to be a little unique.
Everybody's got a chicken and brown rice or or beef and brown rice or fish and this. But nobody's really had a mid Hayden fish at high levels of protein and fat with the coachman and Condroitan. So the hero salute just it just hits every button. Twenty eight, eighteen, eight hundred fifty milligrams with coast me six to get Condroitan high levels of mega three and six. It's just a perfect product for for everybody all the way around.
You get to get to your poodle, your lap dog or a hunting dog that's going hard, you know, five nights a week. You won't you know, you won't find a better product out there, man. And people are not going to mistake the hero salute bag either. It is by far one of the best looking bags of dog food on the market. And I've got it pulled up on the website and you're going to what you're going to see here is you're going to see a Belgian mama, I presume. Yeah, that's a Belgian mama.
Yep. Sitting in front of an American flag. You know, half the bag is American flag, the Belgian mama. The other half is a nice navy blue next level brand logo across the whole bag. It is a very well designed bag. So shout out to your guys as marketing team because you're not going to mistake that bag. No, the folks that did that for us, they're great friends of ours out of Minnesota. They just knocked it out of the park with that bag. They've done a good job on all of our bags.
That man really, really, really drove home. So yeah, they did. So all right. So a couple of other things going back into like the dog food and next level lines to two part deal here. So I want you to talk a little bit about the passion and purpose lines. If people are looking at your bags of feed, they'll see some of them say passion and some of them say purpose. Is there a difference between that?
Like that a consumer can say, okay, if they're having a hard time figuring out what they need for their dog, it falls into one of these two lines. Yeah, we're going to tweak that a little bit as a company. Great answer. That's a great question. And that's what we just talked about last week. And when I was together, like what is passion mean? We're all passionate about our product or passionate about our company. But the passion line is hate to say me too.
Everybody's got a 30 20, a 24 20, a 26 18 maintenance and the purpose line serves a purpose. You know, it serves a puppy. It serves with high lows, necrosis, mcdreughton. It serves a giant breed, so to speak, something like that. So that's really the only difference. All of our products take care of gut health. If you've got a dog that's got a very sensitive stomach, any one of our products will help take care of that. And that's the other thing I wanted to get into.
And I'm glad you just rolled me into this is, you know, you guys have something called the VX advantage. And that has to deal with your probiotics. And is it prebiotics as well as probiotics, prebiotics, probiotics, and now new post biotics. Okay, so let's let's do something here for the listeners. Let's break down what a prebiotic, a probiotic and a post biotic all three of those. Let's dive into each three of those categories.
Yeah, well, you think about your gut, your gut health, your microbiome, the prebiotics feed the probiotics, the probiotics produce the post biotic. So post biotic is like a poop in the probiotics. But all of that stimulates and has a healthy community in your belly that you need to digest. So that's the pre pro and post. We use mineral complexes from all tech. That is your zinc, your copper, your manganese, all that product. It's got to be very bio available or it's no good for you.
And then one of the main things is we use cell plex as a source of selenium. You can get selenium in a rock form for the organic form and we use selenium yeast from all tech and it's a organic form. It's a great, great product to boost immune system. They're using it in humans to slow down the aging process, the Alzheimer's and they're using it to fight cancers. That's increases the egg count in females is sperm counting males. So great, great product. That is our VX advantage.
That's in every bag that we make. All right. I like it. We trademark the term science is in the bag and that's a, that's a little jab that a big popular $8 billion a year company that has their science on the outside of the bag. We put our science in the bag and it's all cited proven and makes, makes a big difference.
Yeah. And, and you guys have, you talk, you hit on it a little bit whenever you're talking about like your ingredients coming in, but you guys have a lab that tests everything that you guys make and correct me if I'm wrong, but when you guys were building the plant, didn't I not hear on one of the videos or somewhere that, um, if anybody has a question about a dog food that you guys will test different brands of dog food and do like a side by side comparison that I hear that right.
You know, kind of story. We have the capabilities of testing dog food. Okay. So we test our income ingredients and then we test our finished product immediately. Plus we send it off to a third party lab to get tested. Okay. So we test other people's dog foods as well. We know what they're doing. Gotcha. So there's no, there's no pulling the wool over your guys' eyes. I mean, you guys know what the competition's doing. Absolutely. So absolutely.
Okay. Where I see that you're on the road all the time you are, you're in, um, you're in big businesses you're setting up, you know, stores like family farm and home, you're in small stores like froggy bottom outdoors. We have a huge line of next level and froggy bottom outdoors. Um, we carry a lot of your guys's blends and we're getting great, great feedback on that. So where can people find next level if they want to give it a try? Like where can they find it?
Well, the best thing to do is go to our website, nextlevelpetfood.com and you can go to the find a retailer, putting your zip code and it'll pop it up. If that don't work, reach out to our info at info at us.petfood.com or info at nextlevelpetfood.com and say, Hey, I live here and I want to find your product. Um, 80,000 Facebook followers. I think today 79, 80,000. And then our number one hits on our webpage is where to find it. People are looking for it. And we got a heat map.
It shows where people are looking and, um, that's what we're showing potential retailers. Look, people are looking for your product, this product here, you know, they're trying to find places to buy it. Um, so that's, that's the best way to do it. Just go to the website or give me a call. I ain't hard to find. Now are you guys all across the country? You primarily like in the Southwest Midwest, like where you guys at right now? No, we're in all 50 States, including Alaska and Hawaii. What?
Yep. And we're down and get some of the, some of the, uh, Panama and you know, a couple of Belize, some of those countries in their South Florida. I'm about to pull this up. Let's see where the closest is. I did not know that. Okay. So while Bashton is pulling that up, let's talk about a couple of hot topics right now. Let's, let's just hit on them.
It has been, it has been tossed around, especially in the coonhound world that some dog foods are causing issues such as thyroid levels and their dog performance has that you guys have the science. Has there been any science to prove that or disprove that? Not that I'm aware of that I've seen, you know, uh, whenever I have a bad day, I tell her, but I have a thyroid problem too. You know, I'm sure there's probably some, some truth to that for some folks, but I just don't know.
Yeah. I've never experienced it. I've always done the blue tick. So my dogs are slower anyway. I don't know about that, but I've never seen any scientific proof or nobody in the dog food world. We have a great nutritionist up St. Louis, Dr. George Collings, and we'd never heard of the dog food causing a thyroid problem. Is there thyroid problems? I'm sure there are, but dog food didn't cause it. Are the people that hunt the blue ticks a little slower too? Absolutely. Okay. Just checking.
I hunt my 40 acres all night long. Hey, that's what it allows you to have that nice physique you got going on. That's right. That's exactly right. There you go. Hey, you know, a guy that I were, it's funny. It's funny story. Guy that I used to work with, he had real bad knee problems and he said, you know why I don't do no more? I don't hunt real hard. I said, why is that? These knees only got so many cycles and I can't follow them dogs. All right, Basin, what'd you find? It's in bomb goers.
It's in tell city, Indiana. Yeah. Bomb guards. Yeah. Bomb guards. Yeah. It's about, uh, that's about 45, 45, 50 minutes from the house. Yeah. Bomb guards. Little, little story there. It used to be Orselands over there. And okay. I was, yeah. Yeah. And that's where I'm actually from. And right across the river. Yep. So the federal trade commission said, no, you can't buy it all that that's, that's whatever. So they had to split that up.
So bomb guards bought some of Orselands stores, uh, buck heights. I've heard from Missouri got some of the tracks. I got the rest. So I know exactly where I know exactly. It's right there across from Mickey D's. Yep. Yep. Yep. Bomb guards is a great retailer. Good, good, good folks based out of Sioux city, Iowa. Okay. Big chain. Hotel city, Indiana. My mom and bro, my mom and both my brothers still live there. Yeah. So. All right. So I just got a couple of these are just fun questions.
I think we've, you know, we've shined the tree on the dog food thing, but like for a guy like you who said you spend like 258 nights on the road, you have, you're away from home a lot. You have, uh, something that is driving you to do that and to stick with the company like this. Like what, what motivates you every day to get up, hop in the plane, get in the car and, and push a product like this? Like what is your motivation and why are you so passionate about it? Yeah, that's just the passion.
And, and I've been blessed to be a part of this, you know, Scott and Antoine, those, those guys are great, great guys and like brothers to me. But I remember when I first got into the pet food industry, I wrote a little article on LinkedIn that, Hey, those of us in rural America, we want good nutrition too. We want our dogs to have the best they can have. Uh, I have been that guy that comes on a Friday and I got my paycheck and I got to buy dog food. I'm buying cigarettes, beer and diapers.
Well, guess what's not going to get cut. It wasn't going to be my beer cigarettes back in the day when I did that stuff. We want to feed a quality dog food for our, for our animals too. And all this marketing and stuff that you see on TV and commercials and some big, big box stores, man, that ain't great nutrition. We believe that next level we're the best to Christmas value on the market. Are we the cheapest bag of food? No, not at all. Are we the most expensive? No, not at all.
But nutritionally, we are the best value on the market today. And there ain't nothing I wouldn't do for Scott and Antoine. And I put my heart and soul in it. I did it at our previous company. I was selling that stuff in my sleep and just enjoyed the people. You know, we feel like our brands of common sense nutrition for the common sense consumer at a common sense price. I'm a hound guy. I'm a country guy.
I can hang with the guys, the pit bulls, I can go on a sport coat in the fancy show dog world or I can put on my hip waders and wait across the river. And I just enjoy that. Say that again about the common sense deal. That was good. That was a good one. Common sense nutrition for the common sense consumer at a common sense price. That's a mic drop. Is that trademarked? Yeah. Not yet. You need to get that on the next on the next bag of dog food.
Yeah. And it really is because when you know, we make our own product and a lot of people don't realize that, you know, there may be 3000 brands of pet food out there, but there's only like 30 smart manufacturers in the United States. There's a lot of product that gets private label and somebody else is making for them. And you can't control your quality or your cost. But that's only our own plant. We're not going to have a fulfillment issue.
There's been some fulfillment issues out there in the country in the last couple of years. You know, competitors can't get product out on the shelf. You know, they're running, you know, six months behind. They can't control the pricing because somebody else is making for them or the quality. We own our own plant and we're not making product for nobody else. We're going to make our own product.
So we're going to have fulfillment, get it on the store shelves and the store is going to have it at a great quality. So that's just that common sense. You know, that's one thing that I did not know happened so much until you and I had a conversation the other day was that there was so much that private labeling going on. I honestly thought that, you know, the majority of the dog food manufacturers manufacture their own food. I did not realize that they were just rolling off different plants.
No, they got to what's called a co-packer. You find a co-packer to make your product. You just own a you just own a brand name and some bags. That's interesting. So, OK, let's talk about the other brand that US Pet Food owns, because, you know, you said that next level is the best nutritional value on the market. And you said, you know, you're not the cheapest, but it's honestly not outrageous at all. It's not bad.
So let's talk about the other brand for maybe that person who doesn't want to spend a little extra on the next level brand. You guys have another sister brand that, you know, very comparable. We do have one called Stratis. It doesn't have the VX advantage in it. It's a great product. Digest very, very well because the way we process our product, it's going to digest. It just didn't have all the fancy vitamins and minerals and the lower calcium levels in it. Gotcha.
And then, you know, there's a there's a cat food in that. There's a puppy food, a 24 20 26 12 coming up. That's going to change the 26 18. And we're coming out with a 30 20 in the next couple of months in that product. Awesome. So as a new company and a growing company, are you guys looking for, you know, customer feedback and looking for those people who are like, hey, we've been trying this and maybe we'll think about this. Are you guys doing that?
Is that something that, you know, people can reach out to info at nextlevel.com and share their mind? Yeah. And you know, just on our Facebook page, they just ask a question there. They're going to get a response more like it's one of the owners just going to respond. I mean, you don't get no better response than that. Right.
And one of the things that I like about it is before next level even released, their very first brand of dog food or excuse me, their very first bag of dog food, you and the other, you know, sales reps were out on the road promoting this product, talking about it. You guys are not hard to find. You go to any of the major Coonhound events and like, you know, like you said, you're going to the premiere of the big show up here in Michigan this weekend. You guys are wearing your next level shirt.
Your next level hats like you guys are doing a good job promoting it. And I've never seen one time where somebody walks up, ask you guys a question and they didn't stay and talk for a while. It's not just a quick answer, high and by you guys like dive deep into that. And I appreciate that. Yeah. You know, it's all about relationships. We want, we want to build a relationship with our consumers. It's like a big family. You know, we're never going to charge you for a ball cap.
If we got a ball cap, you get yours. It's free. A t-shirt, we're going to give it to you. You know, I'm the kind of guy in Scotland and Antwerp too. They go buy a new truck. They're going to leave with a ball cap. You know, so we try to do that and want to build a relationship and answer the questions to take the time. I used to carry two cell phones. Now I'm lucky enough to have one, but it rings all the time.
I tell everybody from eight to five, I'm dealing with retailers and distributors from five to two or three o'clock in the morning. It's Coon hunters and dog people because that's when they're off work. Right. And we all try to make ourselves available and answer those questions. That's really what sets us apart from sides of nutrition. Name another pet food company that you can go watch a video of how their plant plan is made. Uh, you, you won't find it.
Most of them, if you go there, you have to sign an NDA and you have to leave your cell phone in the truck. Ours is wide open. There's no savings. We have, you know, as far as those hats and shirts go, unless you're Bryce Matthews and then you guys steal your kids. Yeah. Hey, I'll tell you what, this is no joke.
I was working a couple of weeks ago and I get a, I get a text message from Brandon and I open it up and it's a picture of Brandon standing there with my fiance and kids and they're all wearing next level hats. And I'm like, hold up. Like I thought you were in like Arkansas or something yesterday and now here you are like taking a picture with my family. We're next level gear. Hey, it is what it is. And they'll bring girls. They got a special place in the heart. I take care of.
Yeah. And so they ran into you at a family farm at home. You were in there checking on another one of your retailers. That's our local farm store here. So you know, that just proves that you guys are out in the field. You're, you're visible. You're there to talk to people. I'm sure if somebody would have stopped you in family farm at home and ask you, Hey, what's this next level? You would have went right ahead and, and you know, told them all about it. Yeah, that's what we do. That's our job.
So, so, so I'm looking, I'm looking at the dog food here and I see two, I see the high energy and obviously, you know, I'm going to ask the hero salute. So I hunt a dog four or five, six nights a week, uh, quite a bit. Um, I'm looking to try out some next level, which one should I switch to? You know, I'm, I, I've always been a big fan of high energy, um, before we come out hero salute. So the differences is hero salute. You're going to have 20% protein versus 20, 24.
So a little bit more protein and a little bit less fat, but higher levels are mega three and sixes and 850 milligrams of the coast and it can grow it. And so it's to me, it's no brainer. It's a hero salute. So Froggy bottom outdoors, we have the high energy in stock. It's 57 99 for a 40 pound bag. That is not bad. And we actually just placed an order for next level Friday and we are going to have some of the hero salute on that truck coming to our store. So we're going to have that available.
I don't have the pricing for that right now, but by the time this podcast airs, we should have that up on the website and we can ship next level dog food. We can ship anything dog food related to anywhere in the country. So if you guys want to try some of that, get onto froggy bottom outdoors.com and you can order your bag of dog food right there.
But speaking of the next level hero salute brand, Brandon, you were gracious enough to say that we note on this podcast, you know, seeing that Semper dogging is all about giving back, especially to our vets. You guys wanted to donate two bags of hero salute to the listeners of this podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Basham and I have been listening for a couple of things to engage our, our audience and have them email us.
So what we're going to do guys, bathroom is going to have a question and I'm going to have a question and we are going to have you guys email Semper dogging at gmail.com and we're going to send two different people a bag of dog food. That's going to come from froggy bottom outdoors. It's going to be a nice froggy bottom outdoors back box. And it is going to be a bag of that hero salute blend. Is that a 40 pound bag, Brandon? 40 pound bag and also a next level ball cap.
We'll throw that in there too. And he's going to throw in the next level box and a t-shirt. Guys, this is getting good. Okay. So we are glad that you guys have listened all the way through this podcast. So on the line, we have two different winners going to win a next level ball cap, a next level t-shirt and a 40 pound bag of hero salute. So Basham, I'll let you go first. What question do you want answered at Semper dogging at gmail.com? Let's go with what is the name of Brandon's blue tick?
Okay. I like that. Which one? This one? The 14 year old. Okay. Yeah. The one that's tattooed on Brandon's arm. So, no, it's not. I lied. Oh, no, that the one that's tattooed on his arm was his first one. Okay. So the question again, repeat it. This is what is the name of Brandon's blue tick? The 14 year old blue tick. The 14 year old blue tick. Okay. Got it. So that's going to be one winner. Now the same person cannot answer both questions and expect to get two bags.
So we're going to split this out. So my question is going to be what was the name of the company that FedEx bought out that Brandon used to work for? I thought that was interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. If you guys can answer those two questions, send those answers into Semper dogging at gmail.com. Frog at Bottom Outdoors, Next Level, we're going to do a giveaway for you guys.
So we appreciate you guys listening to this podcast and sticking it through with us the entire time. This has been good. Basher, you got anything else that's, you know, hot topic, top of mind, anything you want to discuss? We've got the guy on right now. So if you've got something to say or a question, now's your time. No, I think he's, I think he's done a good job.
I want to say thank you for reaching out, for coming on and supporting us, you know, through and through, whether it be Facebook, you know, always sharing our page, you know, it's Semper dogging podcast. Just always supportive of what we're trying to do out over, you know, on this platform, you know, this side of the house, what we're trying to do and the mission that we're trying to accomplish. And I just thankful to be a part of it, be on the podcast and we'll come do it again.
Maybe I'll get Scott or Antoine to join me sometime soon. Oh, that would be awesome. Really geek out and get you guys down to, you know, welcome to Texas sometime and see the planet. Maybe you go in there. Book is we, rumor is we may be a part of a PC down there. A big, big five thousand something. If you guys have done that way, maybe stop by. Book it. I got an entry. Yeah. And are you buying me to? No. Dang. I don't have an entry. Hey, hey.
You know, with Brandon going on 284, you know, nights, I would say that his rewards program is a pretty good, pretty good. I do say that he'll knock a lot. He's got a lot of, he's got a lot of points racked up, right? Yeah. I would give a few away. So not as many as I should have. Oh man. No, that's awesome. So anybody's got any, any, any questions, man, they could just, they can find me personally on Facebook, shoot me a message.
Our office, our inside sales team, customer service, they, there were seconds and then they'll go, they'll do whatever it takes to try to find an answer for you. You know, the foods, 100% guarantee you buy a bag. You feed it. You don't like it. No, it didn't work. Take it back and get your money back. It's not a problem. No hard kids, but it just, it's just the best, my opinion, the best food out there.
I love it because I work for them because I fed it and I'll do anything for Scott and Antoine. I'll take a bullet. They're good guys. They put their whole heart and soul into it and our guys in the plant, they are the best in the business. Yeah. And that's awesome. So Brandon, I just want to once again say thank you for joining us. I'm glad we finally carved out the time to get you on here.
I know we've talked about it for a long time and you and I spend a lot of time on the phone, you know, just doing work business stuff and, and I just really have enjoyed tonight sitting down, uh, you know, kind of just buddy to buddy and, and going deep into this and spreading the knowledge with other hound hunters and other canine fanciers. Um, you know, we're not, this podcast isn't just for the hound guys.
You know, we've got, got people who listened that have all different types of breeds of dogs and you know, I think next level and stratus, they've got something for everybody. So thank you for taking the time to join us tonight, but I sure appreciate it. Thank you guys. All right, Basher, I'm good. Brandon, if you're good, we're going to sign off here. So guys, thank you so much for listening to the Semper doggone podcast.
Be sure to go check out our sponsors, froggy bottom outdoors, never satisfied off road. If there's anything that those guys offer that could be of service to you, make sure that you shop with them. You know, you're supporting the people who support us and they're the ones along with you listeners who help this podcast go every single night or every single week. So we sure appreciate you. We appreciate them. Um, you guys, and we're going to, we're going to sign off for tonight.
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