The Haslemere Pet Company

As most of you know, we have been providing mixed boxes of Naturediet since the shop began. Up till now, we have been pretty easy going when it came to choosing which varieties you did or didn't want in each box, but we have now made the decision to standardize the contents of mixed boxes.

We need to do this for two reasons:

1. Since Naturediet have discontinued both the Chicken & Tripe, as well as the Original varieties, the choice of Adult flavors has been reduced to Fish, Sensitive (Fish and Prawn), Lamb, Chicken, and the new Rabbit & Turkey. This has limited the selection we are able to offer in our mixed boxes, and while we would love to be able to offer a choice, most customers have started to request only Chicken and Lamb.

This has played havoc with our stock control, resulting in us running out of those flavors whilst still fully stocked of the others. Since Naturediet have a high min. order in order to go direct, we have been forced to use other wholesalers to "top up" but they charge more per box. We toyed with the idea of raising our price (we are one of the cheapest around) but thought that wouldn't be fair to other customers. Instead, we came to the decision to standardize the mixed boxes.

2. Mixed boxes are not available either from wholesalers, or from Naturediet direct. We actually unbox the flavors, mix them up ourselves, and then re-seal them as an added service. Re-mixing a box can cause quite a bit of frustration for both customer and staff, as the boxes need to be unsealed, the unwanted flavors taken out and others put back in. If there are not enough of the wanted flavors on the shelf to make up a full box, then another box needs to be opened, unpacked and then the flavors combined - so you can see how what seems like a simple task can take up quite a bit of time, as well as create a bit of frustration on the part of both customers and staff alike.

We hope that this decision has not created any inconvenience, but our choices were to either raise prices, or discontinue offering mixed boxes all together. We understand that our customers like to give their dogs some variety in their diet, so we hope that this decision has resulted in a "happy medium" being achieved.