Most food brands grow by adding. Jackson Jones grew by taking things out.
He was working at Berkshire Hathaway, sitting between Duracell and the Marmon Group, when a friend got him thinking about dog treats. So he carried a KitchenAid down to his basement, ground up some chicken breast, dehydrated it, and handed the result to his dog Rooney. No fillers, no preservatives, no cans. One ingredient.
About six years later, Farm to Pet is a single-ingredient dog and cat treat manufacturer, stocked in 1,003 retail stores, operating from one consolidated Chicago facility, fully bootstrapped, and profitable in 2026.
The product logic holds up. One pound of chicken breast shrinks to about a third of a pound, and what survives is protein density and crunch. The same formula applies to chicken, turkey, beef, and wild-caught Lake Erie walleye, which means a two-year shelf life and no reformulation. It also means that when a dog reacts, you know exactly which ingredient did it. That is why the sensitive-stomach crowd sticks around and why the subscriptions work.
Jackson is candid about the parts founders usually skip. Farm to Pet was production-constrained for the better part of a year: seven days of production, six night shifts, maxed out on floor space and the building's electrical capacity. He could not chase new stores, because he could not make more. Four locations so far, five if you count the basement.
Building on one ingredient also concentrates the risk. Bird flu pushed chicken and turkey up. Beef is still brutal. He chose to eat the margin rather than raise prices on subscribers, and he explains why.
He runs independent retail, Amazon, and direct-to-consumer subscription at once, with no distributors by design. Instagram and the direct brand did the outbound work: retailers found him. That is how a company reaches a thousand doors without a wholesale team.
And he is raising on StartEngine right now. Reg CF, first time through, after deciding he did not want to raise at all. He walks through why crowdfunding beat a strategic check, why bankers look at two years of tax returns and pass, and why he wants customers on the cap table instead of a professional investor base.
The metric he says to follow: lifetime value, currently $130 and climbing, driven by subscriptions rather than one-time ad clicks.
CONNECT
Farm to Pet: https://farmtopettreats.com Invest on StartEngine: https://www.startengine.com/offering/farmtopet Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/farmtopet
Disclaimer: For informational and educational purposes only. This is not investment, legal, or tax advice, and it is not an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any security. Any Reg CF offering may only be made through the company's official Form C and offering page filed with the SEC on a registered funding portal. Review those materials, including all risk factors, before investing. Early stage investing is illiquid and carries a high risk of total loss. All metrics, projections and figures discussed are the speaker's own numbers and are not guarantees of future results. Past performance does not indicate future results.
","author_name":"Pre-IPO Hype"}