Who the Folk?! Podcast interviews Project Hive Co-Founders Melissa Rappaport Schifman and Jim Schifman
Note: Listen to the audio version here. This transcript has been slightly edited for clarity.
Lonny: Welcome to this week's Who the Folk Podcast. I'm Lonny Goldsmith, the editor of TC Jewfolk. This week, I talk to Melissa (“Lissie”) Rappaport Schifman and Jim Schifman, the husband-and-wife team behind Project Hive Pet Company. We talk about what led them to start their business, how their individual backgrounds mesh well for this venture, and creating company with a social mission while also being a capitalist. Melissa Rappaport Schifman and Jim Schifman, welcome to the "Who the Folk?" Podcast. Thank you for joining me.
Jim: Thank you.
Lissie: Thank you for having us.
Lonny: I'm very excited to talk with you both. You two are the founders and creators of Project Hive Pet Company. You make dog toys, dog treats, all manner of dog items, and I guess I'm curious. What was the impetus for starting this company? Where did this idea come from?
Lissie: Jim and I are a husband-and-wife team, and we came from different backgrounds. Jim has experience in the pet industry. Over the past two decades, he has seen the pet industry grow. My background has been in sustainability, and we kind of merged the two together because we had not seen very many pet companies come up with better-for-you or better-for-the-planet type of product. We've seen it in food, we've seen it in cleaning supplies, personal care products, but we weren't seeing a whole lot of innovation in the pet industry. And so, that's how we came up with the idea of Project Hive Pet Company. We have a mission to save bees, so a portion of every purchase plants wildflowers to help establish habitat to nourish and sustain bees.
Lonny: That's amazing. There's all kinds of companies that have "buy a pair of shoes and we'll plant a tree somewhere" sort of situation. So, that sort of social good isn't unusual in this space. But Jim, given your expertise in the pet industry, why do you think it is that the pet industry has sort of lagged behind where others have with respect to bee-friendly or environmentally-conscious type products like this?
Jim: I will tell you that the pet industry overall is a pretty antiquated industry about how to get a product from a manufacturer or from a concept into a consumer's hands. Most of the pet products go through a distributor. So if you shop at your local neighborhood pet store, more than likely it's gone through two or three stops to get to that store and into the hands of the consumer. When you talk about selling into the big box retail environment like a Petco or PetSmart or Target, those sales typically go straight from the manufacturer to that retailer, then to the consumer. But there's several stops along the way because of the nature of the pet industry, where it's very costly to move product. It's also very challenging for individual stores to stock enough product from a manufacturer where they would hit any sort of volume to efficiently move product. And the third thing is that pet food really drives the pet industry. All the other ancillary products kind of ride for free on those trucks to those individual stores because they're replenishing the pet food several times a week in those stores typically.
Lonny: Okay, so are there certain levels of regulations that have to be met with the pet industry and pet food industry, the same way there are food for humans, and is that part of the challenge that stores or manufacturers have with pet products?
Jim: On toys or hard goods, typically there isn't a whole lot of regulation on that. A lot of it has to be compliant with child safety rules, because typically there's toys and other products on the floor in a home. When it comes to food and even treats, it is highly regulated through organization called AAFCO, which is specific to pets, and how you have to label products. Each state has its own licensing process, and they're not all the same. And it's pretty much a hardship for small companies like ours to manage that process— it's very challenging and expensive and time-consuming.
Lonny: I'm really surprised that there aren't more nationwide standards as opposed to state by state. Was that something that struck you as odd as you were learning the ropes of this?
Lissie: Yes, absolutely. Every state, as Jim mentioned, has its own process of registering every label. So if we have five treats, we have to register all five of them annually, and we have to pay for them. Many states require quarterly tonnage reports, and we're not selling tons of treats. I mean, we're putting in, like, 0.03 or something in terms of the tonnage reports. It's quite onerous for small businesses to do this. It really should be a federal process, not state by state. (I'm thinking about writing an article about that.)
Lonny: That's the thing when you're a small business, and you have to put up percentages like that, and I don't mean this pejoratively, it's a rounding error compared to some of what the bigger companies are doing. That's any small business, I think, probably falls into that kind of level. It's a hardship that you all face, no matter the industry, right?
Jim: I think that's right. The chips are stacked against small businesses to survive and flourish based on a lot of regulations that are meant for bigger companies.
Lonny: And it's just unfortunate. You’re trying to start up this company, I mean, you have started up this company, but it's unfortunate that you run into a level of roadblocks that small businesses aren't equipped to face and shouldn't be, frankly, because it's the two of you coming up with this product and the idea.
Lissie: Right. I mean, it's from minimum order quantities for the packaging, or the initial manufacturing; all of the startup costs just to get in it in the first place is quite expensive, but then you have to get the volume in order to make it up. So, the volume is usually typically through retailers, but we are on Chewy and Amazon as well. But trying to get noticed on those dot-coms can be quite difficult. I mean, Amazon is its own bear.
Jim: It's expensive.
Lissie: Yeah, it's expensive. You have to do promotional things in order to even get noticed.
Lonny: Really. Not being somebody who runs small business nor honestly has any interest in it, hearing these stories from people is really fascinating to learn this stuff, and also—oy, what a headache to do this.
Lissie: Yeah. One of the things we learned early on—we wanted to start getting noticed on Google and other search engines, and we tried out doing banner ads and other types of ads. And you may as well be lighting your money on fire, because there is no return on it. And the pet industry is quite competitive. So, to actually purchase keywords—pet toys, dog treats, things like that, it's very expensive. And when you're selling things that are only $8.99, $11.99, you don't have enough margin to cover those costs. So even if you get a new customer that buys a treat or a toy, it's [hardly worth it]. Companies that offer products that are $80 or $150, it might be worth it, but it's really tough for it to pan out financially.
Jim: And as a USA-made dog toy and dog treat company, which is one of the reasons why we started this company was to use business as a force for good and to make USA-manufactured products (which is interesting, given the political environment we're in today about tariffs and everything), we feel like what you were sharing about the cost of promotion and ads, as a USA-manufactured company, we don't have the margin as if we were making it in Asia. So, we don't have the margin built into the product to support a USA-manufactured dog toy or dog treat company, which makes it doubly frustrating from an entrepreneur to say, we're doing everything that we have in our values to build something with a foundation that's sturdy and structured to support USA-manufacturing. But yet we get whacked in the head because our margins aren't there, and it's much more difficult to survive against those Asia-manufactured dog toys.
Lonny: Right, you're doing the thing that you feel like—you read—that people want. They want businesses here, they want products made here and yet it's…
Jim: …its not so simple.
Lonny: No, much easier said than done when you cut through all of everything.
Lissie: We would like consumers to look at it and say, yes, I want to support a USA-made dog toy or dog treat company and buy it. But people tend to look at the cheapest offering.
Lonny: Your pet is like a member of the family, right? So, I don't know why people feel like they should cheap out on certain things. Because, yes, you could buy the cheap small stuffed animal for your dog. My dog, he’s a seven-pound Morkie, and he will go through one of them really quick and leave it in tatters, and then never pick it up again. So great, we spent four bucks on it and we're going to spend four bucks again and again and again, but at a certain point, I'd rather pay a little bit more for something that's better quality that won’t fall apart the first time.
Jim: And the cool thing about our toys, which they're not indestructible—no dog toy is indestructible—not only [are they] made in the US, but we have the ability, because it's nontoxic, BPA-free—all the things that you as a human care about for you and your children (and your pets are your children), but we also the ability to recycle. [It’s] recycle number seven on the curb, if you live in a municipality that has a recycle number seven, and you can send the toys back to us and we'll re-grind them into new toys. It’s the circular economy. We’ve thought through a lot of sustainable practices, with Lissie's expertise, to bring this to life. And so, as an entrepreneur, we're learning, we're on this journey, and we're trying to be flexible with what is thrown at us.
Lonny: Clearly a lot of thought has gone into it if you're offering for people to send them back to you so you can remake them in your toys. Where are they being made right now?
Jim: They're being made in the US.
Lonny: Like, local to Minnesota, or?
Jim: They're not local in Minnesota.
Lonny: I don't need the address or anything. I was just curious of how do you find—as you're coming up with this—how do you find somebody to manufacture this? Like, what goes into that?
Jim: Well, in transparency, when I started thinking about this with Lissie, [with] my expertise in the pet industry for the last 25, almost 30 years, I have a lot of contacts, a lot of trusted partnerships in the industry that manufactures products, and so that was where started. And when I came back and said, I found a manufacturer, my buddy's going to manufacture this for us in China. And Lissie said, that's awesome. You can take our finances and invest it into your company that we're going to support, but I'm not going to be a part of it. She goes, why would you start a company [like that], where we're starting from scratch? We have our values [being] a USA manufacturer. We have our values about being sustainable. Making stuff in China isn’t a sustainable practice. So, if you want to think about making it in the US, let me know when you figure that out. It took me about a year to figure it out.
Lonny: Oh, wow.
Jim: We had a USA manufacturer that was making our products for us. We've since moved to a different manufacturer for a couple of different reasons. But it's just networking and having contacts in the industry.
Lonny: Yeah, you do this long enough, you meet enough people that you're able to piece
together the right approach to get things made. So, I think that one of the things that impresses me the most about this is…So, I love my wife. We have a great relationship, great partnership in running our house, raising our kids. I don't think either one of us wants to run a business together. Yet you two are doing that.
Jim: I'm a good sales guy. [Laughter.]
Lonny: How do you do it? It's fascinating to me. It feels like it's always on in businesses. There is no separation of work, and work-life balance is all intermingled, when you are business partners together.
Lissie: I think part of the reason why it works is because we have complementary skills. Jim is in sales and marketing and has the relationships in the industry, and I am a writer, a sustainability expert and I have a finance background. So those two areas don't overlap that much, and we have a sort of mutual respect for each other's expertise. So, that's the good side. The difficult side is drawing boundaries, because work is always there, and so there are sometimes I don't want to talk about it. So, I have to say it gently and say, “can we not talk about work right now?” But it's always there because this is our company. We did a round a financing where we raised money from friends and family, and so it's not just our money. It's our friend’s and family’s money, and they entrusted us to do something with it. And so, that brought on a lot more pressure.
Lonny: It feels like it's good pressure, though, in some ways…or not, you're looking me like I’m crazy.
Lissie: It's not bad pressure. No, it could be a lot worse.
Lonny: Sure. And also, you're both clearly passionate about the business, I think, not just because it's yours. If you weren't passionate about your business, I’d have concerns, but you both bring a level of expertise in your various areas that mesh pretty well with the products.
Jim: I would say we have confidence in each other and the respective expertise for each other. Lissie, she's way smarter than I am when it comes to almost everything. I like to sell. I like to build product. I like to jump out of an airplane and figure out how to build a
parachute on the way down. That doesn't work for a finance person.
Lissie: It wasn't in the plan that someday we would like to work together; it just sort of came together, with our different careers and backgrounds. I had been a sustainability consultant, and so I was always telling other businesses: here's what you should do to get LEED certified or [improve] this, and here's how you can save money. So, what I like about this is it’s an opportunity to author our own path of sustainability, and we get to decide: is this worth it? Is it not worth it? Does it cost too much? Does anybody care? So, it brings another sense of meaning to our work.
Lonny: So, it's funny the two times Lissie you and I had spoken before today were both sort of around sustainability initiatives. Once was at the Camp Teko ribbon cutting in October of 2023 where we got to see the solar panels on the new building at camp. And then a year ago, when Temple Israel got LEED certified, which is very rare for an existing building, particularly one that is as old as Temple, and you were a key component of that. Which is when you first mentioned Project Hive to me. But all of the time we’ve talked, sustainability is sort of at the heart of that. So, it's clear that it's a big part of what you do and who you are. Where did that passion for that come from for you?
Lissie: A lot of it came from just my background and growing up, being outside in nature. I majored in government and I worked on Capitol Hill and I handled energy and environment issue areas. So academically, that kind of piqued my interest in [understanding] what's the government's role in making sure we have clean air and clean water. But then I lived in Arizona in the 1990s and I used to hike outside, and there would be these air quality alerts saying it's unhealthy for you to hike outside, and I just thought, what are we doing? What are businesses and consumers doing to make our planet not healthy for us to breathe our air or drink our water or eat our food? So, after my last corporate job, I decided to commit myself to sustainability—and that was in 2003—and figure out how to use my education and experience to help businesses become more sustainable. Because I am also still a capitalist, and it's the system that we have. And so, working with businesses, I do think businesses have a responsibility to, you know, help out.
Jim: And Lissie has been a huge, huge influence on my business world. At the same time that Lissie was mentioning that she dedicated her career to sustainability and doing better for the planet, I have another business where I am a manufacturer's rep and I sell into Target Stores. When our oldest daughter, who is now 21, was in diapers, [Lissie] said, could you stop by the co-op and pick up some [Seventh Generation] chlorine-free diapers and maybe some laundry detergent that was free of all the nasty stuff. And then as I'm leaving, she says, better yet, why don't you get them in a Target? So I called the CEO of Seventh Generation, and a year later, we had them on the shelves of Target. And that was an opportunity for me to learn that sustainability is not only good for the environment, it's good for your pocketbook, it's good for a capitalist. And I have built another business a lot around sustainable consumer product goods—everything from Klean Kanteen, which is keeping plastic water bottles out of the waterways, to organic and non-GMO Project Verified human food—cereals and granola and some other categories.
Lonny: I love that you guys have made it so being a capitalist and being sustainable at the same time can happen. I think there's a lot of people that think that it's one or the other.
Lissie: That is what we are working on! It's sort of, can we make this happen? There's not one right answer. We've gone through a couple different certifications: we got B Corp certified, we're certified by 1% for the Planet, we looked at getting carbon neutral certified and decided against that. So, we can't do everything, it's really about prioritizing what you're doing. But being made in the US is a big one. Our treats are vegetarian so it's not animal-based products. Those by themselves are more sustainable than the conventional alternatives. I don't really like to say we have “sustainable” products, because nothing by itself is sustainable. We are still making things that take energy to make, but it's relative to what is in the marketplace and what the dominant player in the marketplace [does]. So, we are more sustainable than those simply because we make our toys in the US, they're recyclable, and because our treats are vegetarian and non-GMO Project Verified. And then we also have a mission. So, we have a give- back where we're not only helping save bees, but we help the ecological health of the planet.
Lonny: So, where do you guys plant your wildflowers, as people buy?
Lissie: We work with The Bee & Butterfly Habitat Fund in the US, and they are primarily planting in the middle of the country, like the farm belt. They will plant two acres or more. They have a program called Seed a Legacy. If you have two acres or more and you commit to five years of transforming whatever it is—whether it's lawn or gravel—into habitat, they give you free seeds.
Lonny: Wow.
Jim: And they give you direction on how to do it, and they give you support on that as well.
Lonny: That feels like that's the key. It's one thing to plant stuff; it's another thing to know what to do once it's planted.
Lissie: That is true. Actually, we're doing that at Camp Teko. We got seeds: we planted the honey bee seed mix, which is a mix of clovers, where we did all the construction by the new building, and then we're working on a pollinator garden on the east side of the camp with taller flowers like echinacea (cone flowers) and coreopsis and things like that. So, that will be another one of the [Seed a Legacy] projects. But we also started a program in Canada. We sell our products to Canadian retailers, and when we started with that, they said, that's great that you're saving bees in the US; what are you doing in Canada? And they challenged us. So, we found The Canadian Honey Council. It’s a nonprofit, and they work to help provide education and resources to honey beekeepers. A lot of them are located near canola farms, and those bees will go then pollinate the canola flowers for a couple weeks, and the rest of the time, they feed them things like sugar water. So, the Canadian Honey Council, because of us, said [to the farmers], “hey, do you guys want habitat planted by your canola farms?” And they were all very enthusiastic about it. So, they already have two projects going and they've got more projects in the works as our Canadian sales grow—and hopefully they will! Canadian habitat will be augmented as well.
Jim: Saving bees is really important. I mean, they [pollinate] about third of our food supply, and right now, they're at their risk every season because of farming practices, climate change, there's a varroa mite which has come over from Asia in the 80s which is also a detriment to the bees. Here in Minnesota, we have almost 500 species of bees in the state of Minnesota. It's a lot. We've learned a lot about bees, by the way. We also learned that there's kind of conflict between the native bee lovers and the honeybee lovers—which, who would have thought there'd be political issues around the bees? We're all trying to save the bees!
Lissie: We're under the “big tent” philosophy: we want to save all bees. And when you plant wildflower habitat, you really are helping native bees [and] honey bees, because it's habitat for both of them.
Jim: And as we think about our company, and we've been around for over three years in the marketplace, we've created over 30 million square feet of pollinator habitat through our donations. So, we are making an impact. That was the goal. I mean, obviously as a capitalist, we want to sell products to make money, but we also want to do good and be of service to the planet. So, we are doing that, and we have big aspirations to do a lot more.
Lonny: Yeah, it's incredible. One of the most fun stories that I've gotten to do here in my nine-plus years at Jew Folk is—it was 2023 in the summer. There's a group of Jewish beekeepers that I got in the bee suit and interviewed and hung out in their hives, and interviewed the beekeepers, and got some really good honey out of it. And it's just the whole experience is fascinating. Like the people who are beekeepers are super passionate about. It’s a really amazing group of people that do that kind of stuff.
Lissie: Yeah that is true. We actually would like to get to know them a little more. In July there's a honey producers’ association meeting that we're going to go.
Lonny: The small neighborhood producers of it—their passion is great and they're here to teach. One of them is really excited to help me set up a hive in my house, which I'm not doing because my wife would leave the house I think. I am happy for people to do it, and I understand the importance of beekeeping, but I think actually really my entire family would leave.
Lissie: It's an interesting one because the native bee proponents, they talk about [the fact] that beekeeping is not an act of conservation. It's more like an agricultural thing; keeping honey bees is like livestock, and they get trucked around and pollinate all the almonds in California. So, for conservation, there's more talk about planting habitat and making sure your lawns are good for hosting native bees, because they’re ground nesters—you might not see them as much, but it's an interesting, different types of groups of people. The honey beekeepers and the native bee advocates don't always agree.
Jim: We support all bees.
Lonny: Yes, well one of the native bees stung me when I was mowing the lawn, he was in the ground and nailed me. So, coming up out of the hive I tried to avoid them, and I did not, and they got me. So, I wasn't real happy with them that day.
Jim: But you're still here to talk about it.
Lonny: I'm still here, I'm not I'm not allergic. I was trying to avoid them, but yes I'm here to tell the tale. So, you said three years since you guys have you started this company. Is the trajectory, without, again, spoiling company secrets here, are you moving it in a path that you hoped to at this point, when you conceived of it?
Jim: No. It's not going big enough and it's not going fast enough for us. There are a lot of reasons for that. I mean there's been a lot of stuff happening the last four or five years in the world—everything from COVID to the political situation we're in today, and also everything in between. We, again going back to [the fact that] we make our stuff in the US, and inevitably it's more expensive, in some cases than conventional stuff that’s made over in Asia or other parts of the world. We believe that we're not out of the realm, and depending on distribution of where we're going—so a neighborhood pet store we're very competitively priced. When you get into the bigger box retailers that have less customer service per se, where there's not a customer service person in the store talking about our brand, it makes it more difficult for someone to pay a bit more than the competitor’s [products]. We have some ideas that we're going to be working on here shortly to to maybe combat that, but that's a long answer to your question. I would like to be selling more products, and we'd like to be making more money to be supporting the bees, and that's really our goal.
Lonny: I suppose being the capitalists that you are, you always want to sell more. I mean, this is your business. You always want to be doing as well as you can be doing.
Lissie: Our projections were a whole lot more. We thought we would do better online. We didn't know how difficult it would be to get people to our website. Chewy and Amazon do pretty well for us. The big box retailers are difficult. They're looking at price points; they're not looking at innovative brands, they want their own brands, possibly, where they put their own proprietary brand, where they source it. Or, they take the big brands where everybody knows the big brands, and those large brands can afford to absorb maybe some of the tariff costs or provide more promotional funds. The other thing is that we have toys and treats that work together to create an engaging, enriching experience for dogs. In large stores the toys and the treats aren't merchandised anywhere near each other.
Lonny: No they’re not.
Lissie: They can be at smaller stores, smaller neighborhood stores when they might say okay here's the USA-made toys and treats over here, or here are the enrichment toys and treats that go together. And that's helpful to us.
Jim: I'd also say that with the current landscape or the political environment, we as a USA-manufacturer dog toy company, have some competitive advantages where we're not hitting we're not getting hit with big tariffs. There are some materials or some ingredients in the supply chain that do affect us, but we're not giving up. We’re entrepreneurial, we're flexible, and part of starting a company is being both flexible and entrepreneurial to figure out what the right path is. When you start a company, it's not a straight line, it never is. So, we're still on the path, and I'm pretty tenacious.
Lonny: Awesome. Possibly the most important question I'm going to ask: where can people locally go shop and find Project Hive treats and toys for their dog?
Jim: You can find them at some of the Pet Evolution stores. You can find them at the Lunds & Byerly’s—some of them have carried our treats and toys over the years. You can certainly find them on our website www.ProjectHivePetCompany.com. You can find them on Chewy; you can find them on Amazon; you can find them on Target.com.
Lissie: Co-ops have our treats. Many of the co-ops, like the Wedge. So, some of the natural food stores they like our treats. They don't typically carry dog toys, but a lot of them are carrying our treats. Downtown Dogs.
Lonny: I was going to plug that place, that’s where our dog goes for boarding and grooming next door. So yes—you would be the plug I need for Downtown Dogs.
Lissie: Yeah, absolutely.
Lonny: Well excellent. Last couple questions before I let you to get out of here and on with your day. First, what is your favorite Jewish holiday?
Lissie: My favorite Jewish holiday is Passover. I love all the food [much of which is pollinated by bees]; I love the stories that we tell every year, it's a great way to gather and just remind ourselves or remind our children where we came from and what our what our story is.
Jim: I'll say Shabbat. The weeks are long with running a company, with all the craziness in the world. It's a nice time to just stop. We don't necessarily go to services every Friday night, but Lissie makes a challah every Friday when we're in town, and we have a dinner and it's kind of like the moment to chill. Whenever we make plans on a Friday, I'm like do we have to?
Lonny: I'm with you, Jim. My wife's on board of that. We very rarely do stuff on Friday night unless it's the only night we could see friends. We really try to take it easy.
Jim: I also like Passover. I would have said that, but Lissie said it first, so I was like, that's my second.
Lonny: Passover is the favorite answer, so you could have said it would have been fine.
Lissie: Can I do a different one? [Laughter]
Lonny: Finally, what is your favorite Jewish food?
Jim: I can tell you my least favorite Jewish food. It’s gefilte fish.
Lonny: I knew you were going to say that.
Jim: My favorite Jewish food, hmm…there's a bunch of them up there. A good charoset. Yeah, I’ll stick with that. [And we need bees to pollinate the apples for charoset!]
Lonny: Charoset, I like charoset too. Good choice.
Lissie: I gotta go with homemade challah.
Lonny: So, you make that.
Lissie: I make it, yeah.
Jim: It is dee-licious.
Lonny: Is it like, without divulging the recipe, is it an old family recipe, or something you've developed, or just found online?
Lissie: No, I’m happy to share! I believe in sharing recipes.
Jim: Some people don't.
Lissie: No, I found it online, ironically maybe through King Arthur's website. It's called Molly's Challah. And it's a really good one. You can start it at noon, and it'll still be ready by six o'clock. And what I also like about it is that when you put the yeast in, before you put it in, you put it with warm water, and so you can see that it's foaming, and if it doesn't foam you know the yeast isn't going to work. And there's other bread recipes where you just hope. You don't see it foaming; you put the yeast in sooner and you don't know if it's going to work and then it can be a bomb.
Lonny: Yeah, hope is not a strategy in business or in cooking or baking, especially with challah. You don't mess with challah. Absolutely not. Lissie Rappaport Schifman and Jim Shifman, thank you both so much. We'll have links to Project Hive Pet Company, and people can check out your products, and best of luck with continued growth in the business, and thanks what you do to support the community and our pets and Minneapolis, so thank you both.
Lissie & Jim: Thank you Lonny! Thanks for having us!
[Music]
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