Growing Buff Cake Without Losing What Makes Us Buff Cake

If there’s one thing we’ve learned about growing a small business, it’s that bigger isn’t automatically better.

Buff Cake Barkery started with a pretty simple idea: make dog treats with ingredients we actually feel good about, keep things small batch and personal, and build the kind of business we’d want to support ourselves.

As Buff Cake has grown, that part hasn’t changed.

There are more orders to pack, more events on the calendar, more shops carrying our treats and definitely more things happening behind the scenes than there used to be. But growth for us has never been about adding things just for the sake of saying we offer more.

If something doesn’t make sense for our customers, their dogs or the kind of business we want Buff Cake to be, it probably doesn’t belong here.

Handmade dog treats, still made the Buff Cake way

Growing Buff Cake has never meant walking away from what got us here. Our dog treats are still handmade in New Hampshire in small batches with human grade ingredients we recognize and feel good about using. We keep our recipes intentional, skip artificial dyes and focus on making treats dogs genuinely get excited about.

Some dogs want the crunch. Our crunchy dog treats give them plenty of options, including Pumped Up PB Pumpkin, Pawfect Apple Treats, Buff Nutter Bones and Barkin BB Crunch.

Other pups prefer something softer. Berry Dawgnuts are our fresh baked blueberry dog treats, made to order for dogs who prefer a softer bite. You can find them in our soft dog treats collection.

Different dogs like different things, which is exactly why we’d rather give you clear ingredient information and different options than pretend there is one perfect treat for every pup.

Sometimes the best ideas come from you

Some of the changes we’ve made over the years haven’t started with us at all. They’ve come from customers.

Treats on Repeat is a perfect example.

We kept hearing from people who had found the treat their dog loved and wanted an easier way to make sure they didn’t run out. So we created a dog treat subscription that makes recurring treat delivery a whole lot easier.

Today, Treats on Repeat lets you choose delivery every 4, 6 or 8 weeks and save up to 12%, depending on the frequency you choose. You can manage your subscription online, so it can keep working around your pup and your household.

Because apparently dogs are very good at remembering treat time and significantly less helpful when it comes to remembering to place the order.

Then we made something for the humans

BCB Crew Wear grew from a similar idea.

We wanted something for the people behind the leash, but we didn’t want to slap our logo on a bunch of random stuff just because we could.

So BCB Crew Wear became its own little extension of Buff Cake, with dog inspired tees, hoodies and caps we’d actually want to wear ourselves.

The philosophy is pretty much the same as it is with our treats. We’d rather offer fewer things we genuinely like than fill a collection with things that don’t feel like us.

Growing without becoming something we’re not

There are a lot of ways we could make Buff Cake bigger.

But we’re much more interested in making it better.

That means continuing to make our treats in small batches. It means using recognizable, human grade ingredients and keeping artificial dyes and unnecessary fillers out of our recipes. It means being thoughtful about the products we add, the stores we work with and the ways we make it easier for customers to shop with us.

It also means knowing when something no longer makes sense and being willing to change it.

Small businesses evolve. Products change. Ideas get better. Sometimes something we were convinced was brilliant turns out to be considerably less brilliant once it meets real life.

And that’s okay.

The goal was never to build the biggest dog treat company.

The goal is to keep building Buff Cake.

A New Hampshire dog bakery that still feels personal when you open your order. A brand that remembers there is an actual dog waiting for what’s inside that bag. And a company that can grow without losing the things that made people root for us in the first place.

We’re pretty proud of how far this little Barkery has come, and even more excited about where it’s going.

Thanks for growing with us, shopping small, telling your friends about us and trusting us with some very important members of your family.

We’ll keep the mixers mixing.

You keep the treat jar stocked.

Deal?