"The facilities and advice we received at Matís' food factory in Höfn in Hornafjörður were the key to the company becoming a reality".
This is what Kristín Þorvaldsdóttir from the company Hundahreysti says, who launched a new type of dog food at the beginning of April last year. The feed is produced according to the Swedish model, which uses Icelandic ingredients. The company is owned by Kristín and her husband, Daníel V. Elíasson, a food technician, but Kristín herself is a business graduate.
They introduced fresh food for dogs in Sweden at the time and after they moved back to Iceland they planned to import the food but it was not allowed as it is a raw material. Kristín works within the Icelandic Kennel Club and decided to combine her hobby and education and start a company for the production. This was the fateful autumn of 2008 and suddenly all assumptions about the financing of the production failed.
"The cost of production facilities was a difficult task for such a small innovative company, but at the beginning of 2009 we were pointed out the possibility of starting production at Matís' food factory in Höfn. In short, we went there, started trying to adapt the Nordic feed to Icelandic conditions. After that, we started production at Matís and got started. At Höfn we got all the facilities we needed and invaluable advice and help from Matís employees. And 10 months after we first launched the product, we have reached a 270 square meter production facility in Kópavogur, "says Kristín.
A group of dog owners was hired to test the production in the beginning and almost everyone is in Hundahreystur's customer group today. The production is about 4 tons per month, but the feed uses raw Icelandic mutton, beef belly and beef blood. No animal by-products other than bovine animals are used. In addition, it is added to potato fiber, wheat bran, calcium, minerals and vitamins. The meat in the feed is raw and that is why it is called fresh feed. The feed is sold frozen and stored for approx. year in the freezer. Nordic fresh food is complete food for dogs and there is no need to give the dog any supplement or mix with other food.
"Fortunately, we did not let the economic collapse stop us and most of all we received the help we received from Matís," says Kristín in Hundahreysti.
Further information can be obtained from Guðmundur H. Gunnarsson, Matís' professional and station manager at Höfn in Hornafjörður, gudmundur.h.gunnarsson@matis.is and with Kristín at Hundahreysti, 892-5292, www.hundahreysti.is.