Lifestyle

After launching BFUK Gin, I thought I had a decent handle on what it takes to start a brand from scratch. Turns out, launching a pet brand like Fur Family is a completely different beast.

My partner and I have always been animal people. Our home is ruled by both cats and dogs who’ve taught us more about patience, chaos, and unconditional love than any self-help book ever could. So when we started noticing gaps in the South African pet market – quality products that were either impossible to find or ridiculously expensive – we started asking ourselves that familiar question: why not?

And that’s how Fur Family started.

We’re still early in this journey, and honestly, we’re learning something new every single day. Some lessons have been harder than others. But if you’re thinking about starting a pet brand (or any business, really) in South Africa, here’s what we’ve discovered so far.

The import problem: cheap isn’t always cheerful

Walk into any pet store and you’ll see shelves stacked with imported products. Most of them are cheap. Some of them are decent. But here’s what we’ve learnt: you really need to interrogate what you’re buying.

We started Fur Family because we were tired of buying pet products that fell apart within days, or worse, we had no idea what they were actually made of. When you love your pets (and let’s be honest, they’re family), you start asking uncomfortable questions:

What’s this glue made from? Is it toxic if my cat licks it?
Why does this toy smell like a chemical factory?
Will this scratcher last longer than a week?
Is this lead going to fall apart on our next walk?

The problem with cheap imports isn’t just quality – it’s that you often don’t know what you’re getting. And when it comes to products your pets are going to chew, scratch, roll around on, or wear every day, that matters.

MOQs are the enemy of small businesses

Here’s something people don’t talk about often enough: Minimum Order Quantities (MOQs) are absolutely brutal when you’re testing a new product.

You want to try something? Great. Order 5,000 units.

Excuse me, what?

We’re a small business. We’re testing products to see if South African pet owners will actually love them as much as our own fur family does. We can’t drop the cash for thousands of units of something that might not work.

So we learnt to adapt. And this is where things got interesting.

If you can’t buy it, make it better

When we couldn’t find anyone locally who could help us make the inner structure for The Scratch Box cardboard scratch boxes – or when MOQs and even pricing made it impossible – we figured it out ourselves.

We experimented. We failed. We tried again. Our pets became very spoiled product testers.

The result? Our scratch boxes are made with non-toxic glue (because we’re not about to risk our pets’ health), and they genuinely last longer than the imported ones we’d tried before. We know this because we’ve tested them side by side, and our own fur family has been aggressively quality-testing them for months.

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A post shared by Fur Family | Locally made pet products for cats and dogs (@furfamily_za)

It wasn’t the easy route. But it was the right one.

When you make something yourself, you control what goes into it. You can make it better. You can make it safer. And you can make it specifically for the conditions and needs of South African pet owners.

The same goes for our leather dog leads and poop bag holders. We wanted quality that would actually last through daily walks, not fall apart after a month. And yes, those have been tested frequently.

Testing is easy (when you live with your test subjects)

Here’s the fun part: we have built-in product testers.

Our pets have opinions. Strong ones.

Every prototype, every new toy, every batch of catnip or valerian root gets tested by our own fur family first. If they ignore it, it doesn’t make it to the shop. If they destroy it within hours, we go back to the drawing board.

We watch how they use things. Do they actually scratch the post, or do they just sniff it and walk away? Does the lead feel comfortable on walks, or does it rub?

It’s honest feedback. Pets don’t lie. They’re not going to pretend they like something just to be polite.

Packaging Mellow Meow and Happy Nip: a comedy of errors

Let me paint you a picture.

You’re trying to package herbs cats love into neat little tins for customers. You need to concentrate. You need to be precise.

But the moment you open that cupboard, suddenly every single cat in the house appears out of thin air.

They’re on the counter. They’re trying to stick their entire faces into the container. One’s attempting to knock everything onto the floor while maintaining eye contact to assert dominance.

Packaging days have become chaotic, hilarious, and occasionally frustrating. We’ve learnt to work quickly, keep lids on tight, and accept that we’ll never have privacy when handling the goods. And, of course, “accidentally” drop some product onto the floor.

What we’re still figuring out

We don’t have all the answers yet. We’re still learning about:

• The best ways to scale without compromising on quality
• How to balance affordability with sustainability (because we want our products to be accessible, but we also refuse to cut corners)
• Building a community of pet owners who care as much about their fur families as we do

Every day brings new challenges. But that’s also what makes this exciting.

Why we’re doing this

At the end of the day, Fur Family exists because we believe South African pets deserve better. They deserve products that are safe, effective, and made with actual care – not just churned out of a factory overseas.

We believe pet owners deserve to know exactly what they’re buying and why it works.

And honestly? We’re doing this because our own pets have given us so much joy, comfort, and ridiculous entertainment over the years. This is our way of giving back; not just to them, but to all the fur families out there.

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A post shared by Fur Family | Locally made pet products for cats and dogs (@furfamily_za)

We’re still figuring things out. We’re still making mistakes and learning as we go. But we’re building something we’re genuinely proud of, one non-toxic scratch box, one leather lead, and one tin of questionable-smelling valerian at a time.

If you’ve got cats or dogs (or both), come check out what we’re building at Fur Family. And if your pets have opinions – good or bad – we genuinely want to hear them.

Because let’s be honest – they’re the real bosses anyway.