How to Make the Best Selling Dog Treats in 3 Easy Steps
Time to read 4 min
The best selling dog treats to make and sell at Farmers Markets, Craft Fairs and Online depend on where you live and on what your customers are looking to buy. The most popular ones are homemade dog treats that cannot be easily found at a grocery store. We find the best selling dog treats are the cute ones that are decorated with healthy homemade dog treat icing.
How to Make the best selling Homemade Dog Treats
The 3 easy steps to make the best selling dog treats are as easy as, baking a dog treat recipe, knowing how to price the treats correctly and selecting the right homemade dog treats that will make you the most profit. Once you achieve these 3 easy steps, you will be on your way to starting a successful dog treat business from your kitchen!
DIY Healthy Dog Treat Recipe
The first place to start is with a homemade dog treat recipe that you can roll out as a dough. While you can find varieties of recipes online be sure that they are truly dog safe. Just because they are online or even in a dog treat recipe book does not mean they have the best ingredients for a dog. You can always ask your veterinarian if an ingredient is safe for dogs to eat or not.
Basically, avoid salt and sugars, and we all know not to use chocolate. But you can use unsweetened Carob chips, for example. For a good dough based dog treat avoid any ingredients that would make your dough rise while baking. The trick is to have a nice flat treat to decorate. You may need to poke small holes in the cutout dough with a fork to prevent air bubbles.
Wheat Flours, Wheat Free Flours or Grain Free Flours... All of these types of flours are most likely safe for dogs to enjoy for treats but not all dogs can eat them. A lot of dogs have allergies to wheat, soy, corn and some require a grain free diet. The best way to choose which flours to use is to decide which one would be the best selling dog treat in your marketplace.
How to Price Dog Treats
Pricing dog treats really starts with how much money you spend on your ingredients. When selecting Wheat Flours, Wheat Free Flours or Grain Free Flours be sure to compare the prices.
Grain Free Flours are the most expensive but dog owners who feed their dogs grain free foods are used to spending more money and already know the prices are higher because the ingredients cost more. However, if the majority of your customer base does not ask for grain free treats then it may not be necessary to bake grain free treats.
Wheat Free Flours are a nice middle of the road selection. They cost less than grain free and they form a perfect dough for rolling out treats that can be nicely decorated with any icing that dries hard.
Wheat flours are also a great choice for "dough rolling" treats but keep in mind that a lot of dog owners would expect that your homemade decorated dog treats are made from wheat free or grain free flours because a lot of dogs are on a wheat free diet. If your customers are not picky, then you are all set to use wheat flour, just remember you are looking for your best selling dog treat recipe so you can sell a lot of treats. If your treats are selling and your ingredients are dog safe, you are doing everything right! After all, every marketplace is different from town to town and from State to State so follow your individual marketplace and try not to compare yourself to other dog treat businesses that live in other parts of the country.
After you select your flours you will need to price them out by how much you actually use in the dog treats, be sure to price out all of your ingredients the same way. Then, you should factor in your labor costs, etc...
Most DIY bakers take our Beginners online course when they decide to start a dog treat business. The e-course is a very detailed step by step instructional course on everything you need to start a successful business. It also comes with a free dog treat recipe and a free dog treat decorating workshop kit.
How to Decorate Dog Treats
After you master your best selling homemade dog treat recipe, it's time to start decorating! The easiest way to decorate dog treats is to use a pre-made dog treat icing mix that dries hard and does not need to be refrigerated. With this style of icing, you can add water in amounts that will help you to control how thin or thick you want the icing to be applied to your treats.
With this style of royal icing for dogs you can use all the human decorating techniques. You can flood the dog treat, then mix up the dog treat icing with all natural or human grade food coloring to pipe out the details on top of the treat. You can use decorating tips and decorating bags, as well.
When you are just learning how to decorate dog treats, the best thing to remember is that with practice your decorating skills will improve. So, do not judge yourself when you are just starting out. Your customers will still purchase your decorated dog treats whether they are perfect or not. They will simply be happy to see hand decorated treats. And their dogs will always ask for more!
To improve your decorating skills quicker, check out the video below; Pastries 4 Pets President, Donna, will show you some great tips on how to use our premixed dog treat icing products. You will be able to decorate any of your homemade dog treat recipes, as long as, you are using a dog treat dough that you can roll out and cut out cute shapes with cookie cutters. Although, you can also drizzle the icing on top of any size and shaped treat, the skies the limit when it comes to your creativity! Have fun and… happy baking!
