Grooming products company shifts to sanitizer amid softer demand for products
April 29, 2020
Pet owners increasingly are stocking up on products to bathe animals unable to visit groomers, but that’s not enough to offset a big drop in business for a Sioux Falls company that sells grooming supplies worldwide.
Groomer’s Choice Pet Products sells everything from shears to shampoo, primarily to grooming businesses worldwide.
“Many of our customers have been shut down, so that affected us in a big way,” owner Dan Dressen said.
“The retailers haven’t been affected as much, but certainly the groomers have.”
There has been a boost in business from pet chains and grocery stores who buy wholesale from the company, but “that’s a smaller part of our business, so it doesn’t affect us positive as much,” Dressen said.
As stay-at-home restrictions nationwide ease a bit, “we are seeing a little uptick from the last four weeks, so that tells me restrictions are being relaxed or groomers are finding ways to get around restrictions to get themselves back in business,” he said.
In Sioux Falls, groomers are allowed to operate. Many have been coordinating pickup of pets in parking lots to limit the number of people in the business.
But with 50 employees at the Sioux Falls headquarters for Groomer’s Choice plus distribution centers in Las Vegas, Philadelphia and Tampa, Dressen and his wife, Wendy, realized early in the pandemic they needed to figure out ways to keep business going.
“Our business was down substantially, and we took some cost-cutting measures and naturally applied for the PPP (Payroll Protection Program), but that wasn’t going to be enough,” he said. “So we said what can we possibly do.”
She suggested making hand sanitizer, and while they have the facility, it wasn’t set up to deal with the alcohol needed for the product. They slept on it. And the next day, Dressen said he decided to call POET.
“And I got ahold of one of their main guys, and he said they had been working on it for a few weeks, so it worked out really well,” he said.
“They’re not a packaging company or a distribution company, and we are. So we sat down, and we said we think we can make it work. So far, we’re taking all they can produce, and we’re turning it into bottle and sending it out, so it’s worked out pretty well.”
It’s daily work, he said. His operation is bottling 10,000 bottles a day on an eight-hour shift with the capacity to add up to two more shifts.
“It’s a very safe grade of ethanol, so we know we have a good product and have something the world needs.”
The sanitizer eventually will be for sale in retail stores, including in Sioux Falls. For the grooming products company, it has been a welcome addition during an uncertain time.
“We have not let one person go companywide, especially now that we’re doing hand sanitizer,” Dressen said. “It’s going well.”
