Pet Insight: Q&A Interview with Richard Murbach, President and CEO, Ultra Pet
Professional History
Tell us how your career path led you to the pet industry and eventually to the helm of Ultra Pet?
It was from prior involvement with an investment group that I was a managing partner in a company that they were invested in, and we were able to sell that company. A couple of years later, Ultra Pet was struggling, and I was recommended as a good candidate to come in and lead the company back out of a mess or out of trouble. We’ve been an overnight success that’s been 15 years in the making.
Most of my career has been in the grocery — it’s been in Consumer Packaged Goods but focused on the grocery industry — so I witnessed over my time in the business a lot of change.
At the time, I was a manager of a new department within a Midwest food broker, but we brought the first professional hair care products to a grocery store. These were products that could only be sold in salons, and we broke the ice and created a professional hair care set in the midst of all of the mega brands like Prell and Head & Shoulders and the old traditional brands. Today the professional products are greater on the shelf. Back in the 80s, traditional gas service stations transitioned into mini marts and with a little bit of inside sales, gas was still a primary source of income, and selling candy bars and cigarettes to the convenience market that we have today. As that transitioned, we brought the first single serve water and juices into the world of convenience stores. Water – whoever heard of selling water? A bottle of water costs as much as a gallon of gas. Things like Tropicana, Gatorade and Ocean Spray — we created the first door of single serve beverages other than Coke and Pepsi to moving to a larger food broker to run the southeast arm of the company, introducing teeny, little brands that are now No. 1 in a majority of markets. There were a lot of fun things over the years.
Professionally, what makes the pet industry a good fit for you? What do you enjoy the most about working in pet?
The thing I enjoy the most is working with genuine, kindhearted people that what unifies the pet industry is people’s love of pets, or animals, and we’re anchored by two shows in the US [Global Pet Expo and SuperZoo], Interzoo and Zoomark and CIPS [China International Pet Show] internationally, so it’s an industry of an industry within an industry and just working with genuine customers and people. We do a fair amount of consumer shows, and you just meet people that care. That’s what’s enjoyable about the industry. We’ve been able to create that kind of culture within Ultra Pet that’s genuine.
Then there’s quality and innovation. You stand amazed as you walk through a Global Pet [Expo] or SuperZoo and say ‘wow.’ You see all of the mega brands and then you see all of the innovation and people who have an idea, get a booth and companies like ours that have been around a little while that have a loyal following. We’ve been able to find niche space and concentrate on alternative litters.
What aspect or aspects of your personal work ethic have helped you most to become successful?
I grew up in the Midwest and there’s this culture of common sense and hard work and a father that was of a school of ‘your word is your bond,’ and if you’re going to do a job, do it right. Don’t take shortcuts. He loved to do woodworking, so one of his favorite things he taught my brothers and me was ‘measure twice and cut once.’ When I take a shortcut, it’s usually measure once and cut twice with a trip to Home Depot in between. It’s a commonsense approach to the business.
What are some of your career accomplishments you value the most?
The thing I’m most proud of, as an executive manager and part sales manager, is hiring and promoting young, intelligent people that just need an opportunity and then investing in them and having a culture that allows them to grow and investing in that growth and patience and direction and just watching people grow. Some of the people I brought into various positions were [in their] first jobs. I would take a chance on somebody who I saw something in. I’ve heard from one young fellow who I hired back in the 80s, he worked in our convenience store business, and 35-40 years later I get this e-mail from him saying: ‘Thank you for my first opportunity – I’ve had a successful career in real estate and am about to retire.’ I hadn’t heard from him in 35-40 years but just watching my people grow, and the team develop. That’s something, even though I’ve had these other firsts, it’s watching people grow and develop and become successful, even when they go onto other companies and take on leadership roles, or own companies today. I enjoy developing people; allowing them the freedom to grow. I take the approach there’s no bad ideas — everybody has a voice and there are no bad ideas.
It’s not terribly sophisticated but I’m kind of a simple guy. I’ve never been of the management style where I try and develop a whole bunch of mini-mes. I want people to succeed in the role they’re placed into because I don’t have expertise in logistics or finance, but other people do, and they just never had the opportunity to develop and become first line or second line managers. We’re a small company, so I need each person learning their position and doing it to the best of their ability. That’s a culture you can build.
You get people that get offered jobs that offer more money, but they like where they’re at, they like the industry they’re in, the company they’re in. They don’t leave.
What is your advice for pet industry manufacturers who are getting their feet back underneath them following two particularly challenging years?
We used the time — time we didn’t spend going to the shows and traveling. We have an operation here in the US and in Europe, and I spent a lot of time on airplanes, but we used that time to refocus internally on our brands and our messaging and we’ve refreshed our flagship brand of Litter Pearls, focused on our supply chain and cost of goods. In areas that never got a lot of attention, we’ve been able to things like strategic planning. So, I guess it’s been a time of refocusing on our company and how we’re going to market and what we’re bringing to market and our supply chain. My advice would be, I hope you used the time wisely because there’s a lot of opportunity still out there.
One of the unfortunate things I think is the time we spend face-to-face with buyers and category managers is going to pretty limited. They’re pretty comfortable doing Zoom meetings or Teams meetings. They like working from home. I don’t know if we’ll travel as much as in the past. The major shows, but when you think about the amount of time you used to spend traveling to see a customer, today it’s ‘let’s schedule a Zoom meeting.’
Pet Industry
How would you describe the current state of the pet industry?
It’s still growing. There’s still a lot of people getting first pets and an additional pet, but the inflationary pressures are going to possibly slow growth. It’s hard to say but I think over the next year some of the spendable income many people might have is limited because of inflation. But I still see the overall push to renewable green products. The growth over the last two years has been incredible.
What are the top 2-3 issues pet manufacturers are currently facing?
I would say pressure on cost of goods such as transportation costs, warehousing, availability of components, and you have to have really good relationships to add new items for the customer. Where shows used to provide a lot of opportunity, and as we resume a lot of shows live, that part will return. But I would say pressure on cost of goods, trying to keep our costs down and affordable. Something as simple as a pallet that used to cost $7 now is $17 – if you can find them. There’s a lot of cost increases. You’ve had to eat some margin to keep your retails within reach of the consumer.
What is the role of manufacturers in the pet industry? What is unique about being a manufacturer in the litter category?
It’s an industry that thrives on innovation and improvements and quality or value so that’s the importance as we continue to bring products. We get specialized in our area, but we can see the white space retailer might have that they don’t see, or we bring them the innovation that allows them to continue to grow segments and different categories. We don’t have a mega brand, but I’ve made a career of finding white space and niche opportunities for new products and going against the biggest guys in categories they dominate, but there’s always a gap to be filled or an innovation or a quality improvement. So that’s been one of our focuses. What are those niches? Where is the white space? If you go to enough consumer shows, you hear what they’re saying, and you listen. You talk to them and listen they tell you what they want and what’s important to them.
Where do you see the litter category headed throughout 2022 and going into 2023?
I would say continued focus on quality, value, supply chain, having product available when they go into the store and online. I don’t see any major shift other than the major issues [already discussed].
Ultra Pet
What do you attribute to Ultra Pet’s continued success?
We zero in on alternative litter and the substrates that will bring the highest quality and innovation to that alternative litter space. Our focus is on following the consumer decision tree and making sure we’re making improvements in each of those areas.
What are some key values and features of Ultra Pet that make you an industry leader? How does the company continually fill gaps within the litter category and address pet owners’ pain points with its solutions-based products?
Again, our focus on what the consumer is demanding. You can go online and read their reviews of your product and they want low odor, low dust, affordability, value, so we focus on those areas.