This Maytown native built her brand on pet costumes; now, her pet food is in stores nationwide | Local Business

Long before she started making costumes for dogs professionally, Allison Albert Ward learned to sew from her beagle-loving grandmother in Mount Joy.

Vera Albert worked as a fourth grade teacher at Grandview Elementary School in Donegal School District for 29 years. Her 2014 obituary called her bond with beagles, of which she had many, a “lifetime love affair.” Two of them were named Katie.

It was those dogs, and the black lab, corgi and cats her parents kept at their Maytown home, that young Ward dressed in her personal projects, sewn capes and paper hats. Sometimes, she roped her little brother into the pageantry, too.

Decades later, Ward has taken full advantage of her childhood talents: as founder and CEO of Pet Krewe, a national pet food and costume company, in New Orleans.

On April 24, Ward’s business took a step closer to home. Pet Krewe’s dog food brand, Ella’s Best, launched in all Weis Markets nationwide. Dollar Tree was the only chain store to offer Ella’s Best in Pennsylvania, until now.

The launch includes the location on West Main Street in Mount Joy, where Ward’s family sometimes takes their grocery runs. While Maureen and Scott Albert, Ward’s parents, no longer have dogs, they still make sure to take photos of the cans on their occasional visits.

READ: Last year’s US Women’s Open provided boost to Lancaster County economy

From accounting to pet costumes

Ward graduated from Donegal High School in 2005 and moved to Dallas to earn her bachelor’s, then master’s, in accounting at Southern Methodist University. After passing the exam to become a certified public accountant, she moved to New Orleans for a job related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a 2010 environmental disaster off the coast of Louisiana.

Outside work, Ward started to sew pet costumes and personally ship them out as a hobby for what she calls “dog influencers,” or dogs with large social media followings. But later, a friend suggested she expand the pastime into a business.

Pet Krewe started out as an Amazon vendor. By the end of 2015, Ward outsourced manufacturing to Asia to grow her startup and hasn’t touched a sewing machine since.

It didn’t take long for the business to take off, thanks to a Japanese Amazon commercial in the spring of 2016 starring a golden retriever wearing her lion’s mane design.

The ad blew up in the U.S. when it aired during the Rio Summer Olympics, and Pet Krewe quickly grew into something bigger.

“That was my moment of being like, ‘Wow, this is something,’” Ward said.

In 2017, Ward decided to leave accounting and pursue Pet Krewe as her main gig.

“When she announced to us she was leaving her CPA job to make pet costumes, we were a little surprised,” Scott said.

Now, Pet Krewe has expanded beyond Amazon. Chewy, a Florida-based pet product online retailer, and independent pet stores across the country offer her costumes, too, from cowboy hats for cats to a Cookie Monster costume for dogs, a collaboration with “Sesame Street.”

Ward’s family in Lancaster County, after learning about the true magnitude of the pet costume industry, became her biggest cheerleaders. Her brother started putting his rescue dog in the hotdog costume, the second-best seller, when the pet got nervous, and he would calm down. Maureen and Scott realized Pet Krewe would finally allow their daughter to utilize the business skills she honed in school, even if their elderly cat Kit Kat is too old to dress up.

“All of the sudden, she got to put it all into place for the first time ever,” Scott said.

READ: Bone broth maker Kettle & Fire opens facility in East Lampeter Township

On to pet food

On a Tuesday in May, Scott, Maureen and Ward’s Great-Aunt Shirley Forney paid their local Weis Markets a visit. None of them have dogs, but it was worth it to check out the shelves and tell passers-by about their family member’s accomplishment: Ward’s dog food cans had launched at the grocery store chain in five flavors.

Ward said Weis Markets told her that customers are already coming back for repeat buys.

“I am so proud of that girl,” Forney said.

It all started five years ago, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Ward had concerns about pet food.

Consumers financially struck by the COVID-19 recession found empty shelves at the grocery store when they looked for affordable options. With limited supply and high prices, the cans low-income families could afford often included frozen animal byproducts, which Ward considered unhealthy for dogs and cats. (Not everyone agrees on this, though; the popular dog food company Purina, for instance, claims on its website that animal byproducts – often organ meat – are “nutritious and palatable” for animals.)

“It doesn’t give you that feeling of trust to know what’s going in there,” Ward said.

Ward took advantage of the market opportunity. She worked with veterinarians and hired a pet food scientist to determine that their products should have broth as the first ingredient instead of water or gravy, use pure proteins and avoid what Ward called “hard-to-digest” ingredients like corn.

Two brands under the Pet Krewe umbrella came to market in October of 2021.

Since launching, Ward says Pet Krewe has sold more than 30 million meals in all 50 states. While the company formerly did business in Canada and Mexico, losses from ongoing retaliatory tariffs from the rest of North America during President Donald Trump’s second term encouraged the company to focus on the U.S. only.

“People are just happy that there’s an option out there that’s not garbage,” she said.

Salty Cat, Pet Krewe’s “hero brand,” offers 15 types of pet food products and more than 20 treat variations. Cat owners can find the products in select Walmart stores across the country (though not in Pennsylvania just yet), in Dollar Tree and online. Maureen and Scott Albert give Kit Kat the food proudly, purchased from trips to Dollar Tree or from packages sent by their daughter.

Dollar Tree also sells Ella’s Best but only features two flavors, of the 15 recipes available in stores across the country. The canned dog food at Weis Markets offers flavors from lamb to filet mignon to chicken pot pie, which Ward says is served the Lancaster County way.

That’s because one state called the pot pie product “misleading” for its soupiness and only backed down after Ward sent in her grandmother Vera Albert’s chicken pot pie recipe, a Lancastrian soup with pie noodles.

Stella and Blanche, Ward’s two dogs, eat Ella’s Best every night. Her cat Mohandas, who spends most of his time with the neighbor’s cat, gets Salty Cat when he actually shows up on her doorstep.

Today, pet food makes up the majority of Pet Krewe’s brand. Even though Ella’s Best just launched at her local grocery store, Ward said she hopes to expand more in Pennsylvania, closer to home.

“It really represents those Anabaptist ideals, and I hope to bring that back,” she said. “Making things affordable.”