Bark and bite | Chris Roberts, co-founder, Barkwheats, Stockton Springs

Photo/David A. Rodgers "The one thing that connects every single thing is Earth, and people want to purchase from a company that has that in mind. You don't want a company that doesn't care about that common bond between you and it." -Chris Roberts, co-founder, Barkwheats, Stockton Springs

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It’s the kind of experience that can only happen in Maine: Chris Roberts, the 28-year-old co-founder of an organic dog biscuit business called Barkwheats, tried for days to reach one of his suppliers, Tom Drew, a buckwheat farmer in Woodland, four hours from Roberts’ home in Stockton Springs. Fearing a tractor mishap may have left him incapacitated or even dead, Roberts called the town office, where Drew is a selectman, and another farmer he knew in the area, who volunteered to drive out to Drew’s fields and deliver the message in person.

“That kind of thing doesn’t happen in huge agriculture,” Roberts says. “It’s so cool to have those kinds of relationships that people have with their suppliers.”

It’s the kind of experience Roberts hopes to see duplicated in all places and in all industries, shrinking the gap between producer, distributor and consumer. Without these kinds of connections, Roberts’ business would probably cease to exist, and the same could be said about the farmers whose products he buys: Drew’s H.B. Farms, once a dairy farm, recently lost its contract with Hood, its main source of income. Now, the farm is Barkwheats’ exclusive buckwheat supplier, and Barkwheats benefits, too, by having a local source for its main ingredient.

Knowing the source of what you eat is a booming trend in the food industry — more restaurants name their providers on their menus, consumers can get a photo of the lobsterman who caught their meal and the term locavore no longer needs explaining. But Roberts is leading that trend in the $28 billion pet products industry, catering to those dog lovers who care about the impact of Fido’s snacks as much as their own. “People love being part of something that’s bigger than just themselves and bigger than just dog treats, knowing their purchases are directly affecting the lives of people,” Roberts says.

Since Roberts and his girlfriend Renee Johnson founded the company in late 2007, it has seen rapid growth. Barkwheats’ grain-free, gluten-free biscuits — in flavors like seaveg and chamomile, and ginger and parsley — are available in 300 stores across the country. Most of the ingredients come from local sources, and the ginger comes from sustainable farms in Belize. Demand has been so high that the couple wants to move production out of the basement of their home and into a new facility in Bucksport they’re hoping to make out of massive used shipping containers. Just this month, Barkwheats’ ginger biscuit earned a Fair Trade certification, making it the first pet product to carry the Fair Trade mark.

Roberts, a Bangor native and former record label recording engineer, spends about 12 hours a day milling the buckwheat berry into flour, drying fresh parsley, mixing dough and baking nearly 5,000 biscuits. Johnson handles the design work and also works for Maine-based nonprofit Sustainable Harvest International, the organization that facilitates Barkwheats’ relationship with ginger farmers in Belize. Through his business, Roberts has become an outspoken advocate for sustainable business practices that benefit more than the bottom line. “We are doing so much more for those farmers [in Belize] than a simple donation to SHI could ever do,” he says. “I’m integrating the nonprofit’s mission into the mission of my company and bringing everything together.”

His business model has had a ripple effect for other Maine businesses, too. Two in a Bush Farm, which grows pumpkin seeds for Fedco in Waterville, used to toss the rest of the pumpkin because it wasn’t licensed to sell it as a food product for people. Now, Barkwheats uses that pumpkin to make a new line of biscuits. “The farm is getting income it never had before for something that used to be a waste product for them, and we’re getting one of the principle ingredients for our products,” Roberts says.

Thinking about the farmers behind his ingredients is what keeps Roberts motivated when the stresses of running a small business begin to wear on him. “I tell people I make dog biscuits, and it sounds kind of lame at first,” Roberts admits. “But now I say I’m helping sustain and promote small agriculture and bringing farms an income, and I’m doing that by making dog biscuits.”

Mindy Favreau

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