Rufus & Coco - Company of the Year - Consumer Products

Company: Rufus & Coco
Company Description: Rufus & Coco is an Australia's pet care brand, providing well-bred pet care to ensure that pets around the world look good and feel great. Australian owned and globally stocked, Rufus & Coco offers a wide range of products covering grooming, vitamins, accessories, treats, toys, environmental friendly waste solutions, clean up products and more.
Nomination Category: Company / Organization Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Company of the Year - Consumer Products - Non-Durables - Small

Nomination Title: Rufus & Coco - Well Bred Petcare

In 2008 Rufus & Coco was founded by entrepreneur Anneke van den Broek who having built a successful corporate career in marketing and business brought to life her long time vision of building a brand offering fashionable, affordable, natural and quality pet care products unlike anything that was available at the time.

Rufus & Coco has since grown from a start-up to the largest privately-owned pet business in the pet accessories category selling into grocery in Australia, as well as being ranged in a total of nine countries around the world.

Having this year celebrated their 13th anniversary, Rufus & Coco are now Australia’s most awarded pet care brand, receiving 12 product awards in Australia and the USA and 3 business awards, including the 2016 NSW Telstra Business Award.

Rufus & Coco are strong supporters of the Australian Pet Welfare Foundation assisting in their mission towards zero euthanasia of pets in shelters by donating a percentage of all sales within their I Give A Wag toy range. Today Rufus & Coco are the number one Australian brand in the pet accessories grocery category with 2,800 orders shipped every month and an average of 2500 products sold per minute globally.

Rufus & Coco celebrated their 13th birthday and within this relatively short time Rufus & Coco have elevated their vision from Australasian Pet Care Brand to being global, becoming a formidable player in the pet industry including being represented in the two largest national grocery chains in Australia. As of 2020, Rufus & Coco is well positioned as a trusted household brand, is now available in nine countries and is currently the no.1 Australian brand in the pet accessories grocery category.

Rufus & Coco also consistently uses it’s platform to advocate for pet welfare and animal rights. Due to Anneke and her teams continued passion and support, along with their partners Australian Pet Welfare Foundation (APWF), Rufus & Coco has contributed to the saving of over 30,000 dogs lives in Australia and in FY20 were able to donate $50,000 to the APWF foundation.

Rufus & Coco is also conscious of a pets environmental impact and seeks to consider this during product development. Despite a challenging 2020 Rufus & Coco produced a new line of natural, environmentally friendly cat litter, Wee Kitty Eco Plant Clumping Litter, and successfully launched it simultaneously into 4 export markets from February 2020. This natural, non-toxic litter which made from tofu is biodegradable, mulch able, compostable and flushable (sceptic-safe) making it the more environmentally friendly solution for cat owners compared to other popular alternatives such as clay litter which is extremely damaging to the environment.

These most recent achievements are especially notable given that the business climate of the second half of FY20 was also greatly impacted by COVID19, result in significant changes to the business markets in both Australia and around the world. Despite this impact as a business Rufus & Coco was able to retain all its staff, pivot business strategy and direction in a timely fashion to pull through this period, redirecting focus to products that were still receiving traction whilst continuing to provide significant support and donations to its partners.

With more people at home than ever Rufus & Coco took advantage of this change in behaviour to leverage their sales in especially litter, for those finding a need to also hoard toilet paper for their cat, andtoys with consumers finding the need to keep their couped up pets entertain and away from their zoom calls.

Equally, launching a new product to the market can be tricky at the best of times but doing it during this climate was especially challenging. However, despite this Rufus & Coco were able to successfully secure ranging of their new Wee Kitty Eco Plant Clumping Litter into 340 Pet Smart stores in early 2020 (USA's largest Pet Speciality Chain). This litter is the second variant produced by Rufus & Coco following in the footsteps of it's it highly successful and award-winning Wee Kitty Corn Clumping Litter which is also a natural litter focused on helping to reduce cat owners "environmental pawprint".

https://rufusandcoco.com.au/collections/litter-accessories/products/wee-kitty-eco-plant-clumping-tofu-litter
https://www.petsmart.com/cat/litter-and-waste-disposal/litter/rufus-and-coco-wee-kitty-eco-plant-cat-litter---clumping-deodorizing-56226.html
https://www.linkedin.com/company/7932629/admin/
Wee Kitty Eco Plant Clumping Litter -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRZuA0rZAbI
Wee Kitty Corn Clumping Litter - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omUYXmtb1Xs
Wee Kitty Brand Video - https://youtu.be/-q3t2OS-Ijk
Reduce your pawprint challenge campaign -https://rufusandcoco.com.au/pages/reduce-your-paw-print-challenge