2nd Time in 10 years!
Don’t worry dear reader, in the latest post from More Than a Speed Bump, I will not be announcing a rare feat that I’ve accomplished. Rather, this entry will describe a momentous occasion which I was blessed to be a part of with RAWZ Natural Pet Food’s team: RAWZ’s 2nd ever in-person company wide meeting! Fall in New England is a beautiful time of year and we were blessed with some nice weather as the entire RAWZ lineup met in Boston for two days of meetings. As a group scattered around the country, we typically rely on virtual mediums to facilitate group discussions, but since we recently celebrated our 10th birthday and hadn’t met face to face for 5 years, 2025 was the year to come together!
Out of curiosity, I pulled up the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers on the survival rates for new businesses started in the 2010’s. Not surprisingly, given the fast paced dynamic business environment of the times, the BLS reports survival rates for new ventures of 78.3% for 1 year, 45.4% for 5, and only 32.8% for 10 years. My takeaway from those numbers is that the RAWZ team really should be proud for surviving. Even more than that though, we haven’t just survived, but made a real difference in the lives of people and pets; offering a full line of minimally processed dog and cat recipes while donating over $3.725 million to our amazing RAWZ Fund partners!
Of course, the meeting involved a lot of high level discussion about strategy, marketing, and recipe formulation that exceeds both my job description and certainly pay grade. The overall feeling shared by the team, however is what I hope to relay to you here today. 14 team RAWZ members came from all over the country to celebrate our work thus far and map a way forward. I’ll withhold specific examples, but the passion for and belief in our brand and mission were palpable including the heartfelt testimonial of a teammates own dogs’ thriving. Hearing my parents’ share how watching Andy and my recoveries being profoundly blessed by some of our RAWZ Fund partners as the driver for our cause-based raison d’être was personally moving.
After a busy couple of days, Jill Gravink, founder and executive director of Northeast (NEP) Passage shared NEP’s history and detailed some of their life-improving programming. I had seen Andy’s playing sled hockey with NEP at UNH and done many activities with the amazing NEP team, but was really moved to hear Jill describe their evolution over the last 35 years! To finish our time together, the team piled into a shuttle to NEADS campus in Princeton, MA where we saw their impressive growing facility and interact with a few of the team. Perhaps the highlight of the day was seeing a litter of yellow/black labs enjoying feeding time with Mom!
I struggle to convey the gratitude I feel for all the blessings in my life, with being on the RAWZ team certainly one of them. My role at RAWZ is primarily to write the blog, work retail demos, train our retail associates, and fill in wherever I can help. How beautiful it is that our mission is to improve the lives’ of people and pets, and fortunately, working with such a phenomenal team surely enriches mine!