A Flint River Ranch News Feed

New Flint River Ranch Grain-Free Cat and Kitten Food Ready to Make Its Debut!

Flint River Ranch
We’re excited to announce that the new Flint River Ranch Grain-Free Cat & Kitten Formula has been finalized and is going into production now, so expect to see this great new formula available on our website before the end of the year!

The Grain-Free Cat and Kitten Formula will be ideally formulated for cats of all life stages and will feature higher portions of protein (42% minimum!) compared to our existing Flint River Ranch cat food formulas, with proteins making up half of the first 6 ingredients.

The primary protein source remains human-grade chicken — given the higher cost of ingredients today, chicken remains the most cost-efficient high quality protein for us to use.  Plus it helps make for an easier transition from our existing cat food formulas.

The Flint River Ranch No-Grain Cat Food formula will also feature a good amount of cranberries to assist in keeping your cats urinary tract in good shape and to help minimize urinary infections.   We’ve formulated the new food to include a variety of additional aspects for enhancing your cat’s litter box environment as well.

New Packaging for Flint River Ranch Formulas!

Flint River Ranch
To go along with the introduction of the new Flint River Ranch Grain-Free cat food formula, you’ll soon notice new bag designs for both our cat foods and our dog foods.   The new designs are designed to prominently feature an iconic cat and dog that represent the strength, vitality and good health that Flint River Ranch formulas provide.

We’ll also be making minimal formula changes that you’ll note in the new bags that are being released.  These changes are to make sure our formulas adhere to several new “Safe Food and Labeling Acts” that have been passed by the government for not only human food products, but also pet foods.   These acts are signs of progress on government programs that Flint River Ranch has been encouraging and advocating for a long time, and Flint River Ranch supports these efforts and welcomes our industry’s participation.

These new acts and laws should work towards eliminating the many errors and discrepancies with other pet foods that have created confusion in the market, some due to lack of industry experience and some intentional when it comes to pet food labeling. Along with guidelines set forth by State Agriculture and Veterinary Departments and the FDA, much is being accomplished for pet food labeling integrity.

Several things most certainly won’t be changing when it comes to Flint River Ranch.  We’ll never compromise on quality and will continue offering our one-of-a-kind oven-baking process will continue to provide an easier-to-digest diet compared to extruded diets. We’ll also continue to go the extra step with our human-quality meat meals and grain mixes to bring benefits to the digestive system as well providing needed nutritional benefits.

We’ll also continue to use chelated minerals and vitamins for easy assimilation in your pet’s body, and our meat meals will continue to be manufactured from the finest quality meats and contain zero by-product meals.

Another aspect that won’t change with the new packaging is the weight of the foods we sell. Many pet food manufacturers continue to downsize the weight of the bags while keeping the same price or even raising their prices — the industry standard used to be 40 pound bags, then it went to 35, then to 32, and now we’re learning that some consider their new “largest” bag will be only 28 pounds of product! At Flint River Ranch, we’ll be continuing to offer our 10lb and 20lb bags, with reduced pricing available on 40lb, 200lb and 520lb orders.

Flint River Ranch will continue to provide gourmet, holistic pet foods at reasonable pricing delivered fresh to your home. Since our inception, Flint River Ranch has never had a challenge with our process or our formulas’ selected ingredients, from any regulatory agencies or the various pet food recalls. We are very proud of this fact. You will always feel good about what you feed your pets with Flint River Ranch products!

Thank you for being involved and for allowing Flint River Ranch to be a part of your pet’s life!  We take that responsibility very seriously!

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Flint River Ranch is celebrating its 18th birthday!  From Headquarters:

As I reflect on the significance of being in business for 18 years, I remember my first days back with Flint River Ranch; now over 16 years ago. Back then we only sold Cat, Original, Nugget and Senior/Lite.  We worked out of a small warehouse with cramped front offices and little storage. We did everything by hand, taking orders on PC’s that had maybe 250 Kilobytes of RAM and used dial-up modems. We dealt with lots of forms; received hundreds of faxes & mailed in orders, and handled most orders via live phone calls. Every order was handled by 6 different people. I remember being on the phones, taking orders and after completing the order, letting the customer know that they could expect the order in 7 to 14 business days since we were shipping from California and Pittsburgh.  It was quite different from how we conduct business today.

We have always strived to do those things that benefit customers and their family companions in conservative manner to keep your feeding costs down.  Today we have our second version of the website handling interface between you, our distributors and directly placing your orders. Most orders are now handled via the Internet; either through the Company website, a replicated distributor website or through the distributors personal website.   Our shipping time; by now using 14 logistical warehouses, has dropped to within 3 days on average for even more fresher products.  I think that we only “touch” 5% of the orders anymore. All the rest go through our system via electronic means. The focus of our Call Center is process development, checking on shipping, problem solving and informing new distributors and customers about the product line.  We always strive to provide the best service for our customers.

Jim and I miss the “human touch” we used to be able to give to each customer. We knew many of our customers by their voice and could recite their orders from memory before even looking up their accounts. We continue to encourage our CSR’s and distributors to provide the human element that everyone should expect from Flint River Ranch.  Flint River Ranch was built by personal relationships that our distributors would developed with their customers and we would personally support. We look to continue to build our relationship with you but in a different manner; I personally receive every email that comes to me. I continue to get in new testimonials and we post them on our Facebook and on the Company website.  None of these testimonies are fabricated; they all come from emails submitted to us.   I love that so many send in pictures of their pets also, please continue sharing your success with our formulas.  I will continue to look for more ways to reach out to everyone as personally as I can.

We still sell our Original Oven-baked Kibble and Nugget, as well as our Original Cat formulas. However, we’ve added Lamb many years ago, Trout and our Duck oven-baked, no-grain formulas followed successfully as well. We added Hairball and Lite Cat formulas years ago as well. We are looking at about 14 years of Dry Water being a unique and successful product all onto itself.  We continue to look into the future demands of our customers; No-Grain formulas continue to gain in popularity. Our No-Grain formulas are doing very well and we continue to get good reports on the health and vigor that these recipes provide your pets. We are working towards having our first No-Grain Cat formula soon; following in the experience we’ve gained from our Trout & Potato and Duck & Potato formulas.

Yes, we’ve grown, changed and expanded in our business over these past 18 years. We continue to be guided by our customers and distributors needs, and by Jim Flint. Jim continues to have the insight and knowledge to make Flint River Ranch viable and relevant in today’s market. Other companies have come and gone these past years, but Flint River Ranch continues to provide our customers with some of the finest pet food diets available on the market. Some of our formulas are now 18 years old and they are still relevant and in high demand. Original Oven-baked Kibble is still our number one formula; despite its age. Jim helped develop this formula over 18 years ago, and it’s still just as good as it was during its introduction. Sometimes you just get it right the first time.

Thank you for your continued patronage!  We’re looking forward to our next 18 years with you!

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Great news! Our Pet Force Pet Stain Remover and Cleaner is back by popular request! We have a new Pet Force combo package available that’s sure to get out your toughest pet stains.

The Combo Package features a 32 oz spray bottle of pre-mixed Pet Force as well as a 16 oz concentrated bottle of Pet Force for refills. Pet Force concentrate can be mixed with up to 8 parts water, so it is a great value too!

Please note that the Pet Force Combo Packages ship via FedEx Smartpost and are delivered by the United States Postal Service, and they may take up to 10 days to arrive.

Order The Pet Force Cleaner Combo Package Today!

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We’re excited to announce two new dog chew treats now available from A+ Flint River Ranch! Our new Flint River Ranch Toobles Dog Chews and Flint River Ranch Braided Pizzle Sticks join our existing lineup of Bully Sticks and Deer Antler chew treats for dogs.

Our “Toobles” and braided pizzle sticks are all natural, healthy dog chews that will help your dog exercise his natural urge to chew while keeping your home from being damaged or messing up your carpets.

The braided pizzle sticks come from free-range, grass-fed cattle and are completely chemical-free. Dogs absolutely love the pizzles, and the chewing actions will help to keep your dog’s teeth clean and his gums strong and healthy.

The “Toobles” dog chews are a low-fat, high-protein, no mess treat straight from Mother Nature!
These USDA-inspected trachea chews for dogs are slow roasted to perfection and are made right here in the USA without the use of any chemicals and are extensively tested for safety!

You will love keeping your dogs happy and occupied with the new Flint River Ranch dog chews — give them a try today! These two products ship via FedEx SmartPost and are delivered by the U.S. Postal Service, so they may take several days longer to arrive than our Flint River Ranch dog foods and treats that ship via UPS.

Let us know what your dogs think of the new doggie chew treats — we can’t wait to hear from you!

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We’re excited to announce several important new features in the ‘My Account’ section of our website that will make it quicker and easier than ever to order Flint River Ranch products as well as retrieve all of the important order information you need in the shortest possible time.

To this end, we’ve redesigned the ‘My Account’ part of our site so that when you log in you’ll be able to view from the main page all the key order details from your most recent orders. The main account page now displays the products and quantities purchased for previous orders as well as the tracking numbers for recent orders and the scheduled dates of delivery (when available). Clicking on the tracking number links from the main account page will provide instant real-time details on the status of your orders.

We’ve also added a new ‘Quick Reorder’ button on the main account page that makes it easy to quickly reorder the same items from a previous order. Clicking on one of the quick reorder buttons will add the same items and quantities from a previous order to your shopping cart and take you directly to the checkout page, where you can select your payment method and check out or continue shopping for additional products if desired.

When combined with our new ‘Rebilling’ payment feature, which allows you to select a previously used credit or debit card as your payment method without needing to re-enter the full card number, you can now complete a new order from A+ Flint River Ranch in as few as four clicks — My Account > Quick Reorder > Rebill > Confirm Order!

It’s important to us that you have an enjoyable shopping experience at A+ Flint River Ranch — one that doesn’t slow you down or leave you confused when it comes to needing to quickly retrieve key order details. We’re excited to be able to add these new features that streamline the ordering process and retrieval of important order information — features that your won’t find on any other Flint River Ranch site, including the Flint River Ranch official site.

Let us now what you think of the new My Account features, the Quick Reorder functionality and the Rebilling payment option — we always love to hear from our customers!

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We have news that the new Flint River Ranch pet food prices will be going into effect on July 25th, so we’re encouraging everyone to take advantage of the current prices during the next two weeks.

We hope to have a listing of the new prices shortly, but we can say right now that it looks like the Duck & Oatmeal formula will see the largest price increase as industry demand for high-quality duck meat has jumped considerably this year.

In the good news department, we’ve been informed that Flint River Ranch has a new “No Grain” cat food formula in the works. The Flint River Ranch No-Grain Cat Food formula is expected to debut in early fall and will be based on free-range chicken as the primary protein source (which should assist in keeping the pricing as reasonable as possible) but without any common grains (rice, corn, wheat) that other products have.

Remember to get your Flint River Ranch orders in before July 25th to get the current pricing!

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Hi Everyone!

We’d like to share the latest news from Japan on Flint River Ranch donations. Our Japanese distributor Kitpups has been extremely diligent in assisting JEARS as much as it can and even coordinating help through the U.S. Embassy. The two photos below show some of the food that Flint River Ranch last donated and also the Kitpups truck.

The truck shows just how committed Kitpups is to the “natural” world of pet food. You can tell that they care about their business, and the message is reinforced in how clean and professional their truck is. We’ve all seen banged up, dirty vehicles going down the street. Image and cleanliness mean a lot to us and who we do business with and in how we try to conduct our business. We’ve always kept the cleanest facilities possible and we know it shows due to the minimal complaints we’ve had over the years regarding damage and dirt on our products.

We want to have the best natural and nutritionally “clean” formulas possible for your pets, and it’s equally important to us how we deliver the best possible natural pet food product to you.

We’ve been very impressed with Kitpups and their continual efforts to assist the animals impacted by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami and the resulting complications they caused. Kitpups has informed us that they basically have the whole family living with them now. At night they pretty much all sleep in the same room to save on electricity and keep cool.

There are still a lot of hardships going on in Japan, Alabama, Missouri, Georgia and elsewhere from the recent natural disasters. Please keep those who have suffered and their families in your thoughts and prayers.

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It’s the news none of us wants to hear. Back in April we read a news story from Bloomberg titled Fido’s Food Set to Take Bigger Bite of Budget that discussed how the cost of feeding our pets was expected to surge in the coming months, following the rise in our own food bills. Sure enough, pet food prices across the board have been rising recently, and we unfortunately need to report that a price increase is coming for Flint River Ranch pet foods as well.

Flint River Ranch has absorbed as many increases in shipping, fuel (yet again), supplies and higher ingredient prices this year as possible, but an adjustment in prices has become unavoidable due the rapid rise in many of these costs. Expect this increase to go into effect within the next 30 days.

We have always lowered costs where and when we’ve been able to do so, and this will be the first price increase for Flint River Ranch in well over a year. We realize that our customers are being hit with price increases everywhere in their lives, and we truly regret having to add yet another cost increase to our customers. We have always been and continue to be as expense streamlined as we possibly can be and have limited our expenses to the bare minimum. We have also done what we can to augment other increases and hold off on passing them along up to now. But another cost increase on production costs earlier in the year and then earlier this month we experienced yet another price increase on our ingredients. These last cost increases have forced us to adjust our product pricing.

We don’t have the official price adjustments or the exact date of the price increases, but as soon as we do have these details we’ll post them and update our site. We are continuing to work to make the increases as nominal as possible, and unlike many pet food manufacturers, we’re not going to reduce our bag sizes in order to make it appear as though our prices haven’t increased. We will also continue to be able to provide discounted pricing on all bulk orders, so if you’re able to do so or can organize with other local Flint River Ranch customers, you can take advantage of the savings on our 200lb and 520lb pet food orders.

Even with this price increase, Flint River Ranch products remain affordable in today’s pet food market. The nutritional density of all Flint River Ranch foods still means a cost savings against comparable pet food brands up to 25%, and our all-natural, human-grade ingredients and oven-baked richness will always be second to none in the pet food industry.

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At A+ Flint River Ranch we’re always working on ways to make it quicker and easier for you to order Flint River Ranch pet food, and as part of our ongoing efforts we’re excited to announce a new rebilling feature that enables you to rebill previously used credit and debit cards without needing the full card number and without us having to save or store your full credit card number on our server (only the last four digits are saved).

The new rebilling payment option will automatically display as a payment option any credit card or debit card that’s previously been used to place an order with us within the last ninety days. The new rebilling option offers two key advantages:

• Makes the process of paying for repeat purchases much easier and quicker for you
• At the same time, it ensures maximum security and protection of your sensitive credit card information

Only valid cards will be displayed as an option for payment, so if your card has been declined previously or if it has recently expired, the rebilling option won’t display for the card and you’ll need to select another payment option. Additionally, if the billing address associated with the card has changed you’ll also need to select a different payment option.

We’re very excited to make this option available to our customers, and we also want you to know that the protection of your sensitive credit/debit card information is very important to us. We want to reiterate that your full card number will never be stored on our server — only the last four digits of the credit/debit card will be saved for rebilling purposes.

We’re excited to hear what you think about this new payment option feature!

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Recently we’ve received several calls and e-mails from customers wanting to know about the potential impact of the earthquake and nuclear radiation in Japan upon our Flint River Ranch Bonita Flakes cat treats.  We want to assure all of our customers on this front.

At the time of the Japanese disaster, we still had a strong supply of Bonita Fish Flakes available for our orders.  Flint River Ranch also immediately secured, from another source, more Bonita Flakes that should last us for the rest of this year at the least.

These Bonita Flakes have already been processed into individual bags and the bags have been “nitrogen filled” to extend their shelf life.  This is just an additional step to ensure they will stay stable by limiting their exposure to oxygen.  So if you receive any Bonita Flake cat treat bags that appear puffed up, don’t fear — it’s just a little nitrogen in the bag to help maintain their freshness.

We are also seeking additional sources of Bonita for the future — we’re even looking into sources from Australia.

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