Groovy good treats for man’s best friend

Rich Palzewic

Staff

November 25, 2024

MENOMONIE – To better represent his company, Bongil Koo, a South Korean native, said it was time for a rebranding for operations in the City of Menomonie.

In late October, the Menomonie Area Chamber & Visitor Center held a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Koowill (815 Nordson Circle) to help the pet supply company unveil its new brand – Groovies^®.

As part of the rebrand, the company launched its next-gen dental chews for pets, which Koo said offers solutions for both dogs and cats.

According to the company’s website (groovies.us), Groovies has a unique design, using grooves, oval holes and ridges that are developed based on the structure of the pet’s teeth to consistently remove plaque and tartar – with each product being made from a formula that improves oral health in different types of conditions.

“Our chews have a groovy shape, which fits perfectly for dog or cat teeth,” Koo said of choosing the name Groovies. “Our shape is globally patented.”

Currently, Koo said Groovies has eight employees at its Menomonie facility.

“We have packaging storage used for shipping and receiving and ingredient storage where we are measuring and preparing for manufacturing,” he said. “We also have a manufacturing room for production, a cutting room, which is a walk-in cooler, a dry room and a packaging room. These are our basic steps for making our products.”

Koo said Groovies is also working on a new installation for the manufacturing room.

“We are going to do manufacturing automatically so our employees no longer have to lift (heavy amounts) of ingredients,” he said. “Once we install the new machine, the maximum weight for lifting will be 15 pounds when we do packaging.”

Koo said Groovies also has a warehouse for stocking its final products and preparing shipping to the U.S. market.

“We only have dog and cat products right now,” he said. “In the future, we are planning to do 100% based-in-USA products.”

A little history

Koo said the company was originally established in 1999 under the name Forcans Inc. in Anseong, South Korea.

“Initially, we specialized in cleaning products, such as dog shampoos and deodorizers,” he said. “In 2008, we expanded our business to include dental chew products for pet oral health and set up a dedicated research lab.”

At that time, Koo said the company was making dental sticks.

“However, we heard that the dental chew products being made at the time were very hard, difficult to digest and not effective for tartar removal,” he said. “This led us to think, ‘Why are they hard to digest, and why isn’t tartar being removed effectively?’”

Focusing on those issues, Koo said Groovies began researching and developing a better product.

“After extensive research and development, we designed our product to be easily digestible by manufacturing it in a way similar to noodle production, ensuring it is flexible and safe to chew,” he said. “We developed a dental chew tailored to the size of dogs. This is our DentalFit technology (which was created in 2010) and the reason we started our dental chew business.”

Koo said the DentalFit technology is designed to more closely observe the structure of teeth and chewing habits of pets of multiple weights and breeds.

Based on the results, Koo said he’s glad they put the time and energy into making the product better via the DentalFit technology.

“We were exporting to 12 countries across Southern Asia, including Japan,” he said. “We started exporting (to the United States) in 2016 but faced unexpected failure when retailers declared they would only sell products made in the USA.”

To overcome this, Koo said that’s when a factory was established in Menomonie in 2019.

“Despite several setbacks, with persistent effort and local support, we are now making significant strides toward success in the U.S. market, including (being available at) PetSmart, Chewy.com, Amazon and in pet shops nationwide,” he said.

Koo said there are cultural differences in Asian pet treats compared to U.S. pet treats.

“Before I came to the Menomonie area from South Korea, I was very confident that my product was perfect and would play a role in the next generation within two years,” he said. “But, our first products encountered unexpected challenges. It turned out there are cultural differences in dog chews between Asia and North America.”

In Asia, Koo said people prefer dog chews to be “very flexible and long-lasting.”

“However, American pet owners prefer them to be bigger, harder and long-lasting,” he said. “Also, we experienced significant cultural differences in our brand name and package design, leading us to recognize the complete failure of our initial attempts and make a serious decision to rebrand. After making significant investments and conducting new research, our rebranded product won runner-up at the 2022 Super Zoo in Las Vegas. It was recognized and praised by many pet experts, managers and dealers.”

West Central Wisconsin is home

Coming from Anseong, South Korea – a city of more than 185,000 people in the Gyeonggi Province – to Menomonie – a city of almost 17,000 in Dunn County – Koo said “it’s home to me.”

Because of that, Koo said he’s loyal to the area.

“The first location we planned is certainly my hometown of Menomonie,” he said. “It is a safe city where I have lived, with friendly and diligent residents. It made me truly love this town. Additionally, it has the ideal humidity and temperature for manufacturing our products, providing us with an excellent environment.”

However, Koo did say “the long logistic distance for nationwide shipping and export” is a slight drawback.

“My wife and I have bigger dreams for the development of this area if we succeed here,” he said. “Though I can’t share those dreams yet, based on our experiences here and in South Korea, we want to create something that all people can enjoy and be happy with.”