Who’s Who 2024: Maria Ringo and David Stauble, founders, Carna4

Maria Ringo has been in the pet food industry for over 35 years. Currently, she and her husband David Stauble are co-owners and co-founders of Carna4 Handcrafted Pet Food. However, while this is her husband’s first pet food business, Ringo has a much longer, and a much richer history in this segment of the market.

“Back in the 1980s, a friend and I had Bullmastiffs,” Ringo recalls. “We were interested in natural rearing and raw foods, but there was nothing on the market. So we created a food that had oats, nuts, herbs, and almonds—all ground up and mixed. It was a dry bag of food, which consumers would moisten and add fresh meat. This was the first raw food diet available commercially in the United States.”

Ringo and her then business partner/friend attended all the trade shows to promote their unique pet food line.

“It was a great experience,” she says. “My husband likes to say that I got my MBA the hard way because I learned a lot about this industry, and about everything having to do with business.”

The next chapter

Ringo ran her raw pet food business for about 10 years, sold it in the 1990s, and then went on to start a new chapter in her life.

“I became a homeopathic doctor, married my husband, had a family, and I’ve been in private practice as a homeopath for the last 12 years,” she says.

While Ringo was busy raising a family and practicing homeopathy, her husband was running a large chain of retail pet stores in Canada. Then, one day his company was bought out, and he and all the other executives were suddenly unemployed.

“That’s when he told me that he wanted to start his own dog food company,” Ringo recalls. “I said ‘No way!’ but he wouldn’t listen, and that’s when Carna4 was started.”

Although Ringo agreed to work with her husband on this new endeavour, she had one condition.

“I told him that I don’t want to do this, but that I would if we could make it better than my first company,” she explains.

Ringo’s husband was up to the challenge. He crafted a recipe and sourced all the ingredients.

“We select all the ingredients ourselves to this day,” Ringo adds. “It’s all human-grade, meant for the table and the grocery store.”

According to Ringo, the new recipe is in fact better than what she was able to offer back in the 1980s. “We put together a unique product that is better. It’s quick-baked and air-dried so all the pathogens are killed,” she explains. “You’re not handling raw meat.”

Ringo still believes that raw meat is best for pets.

“That’s the best you can do, but not everybody can,” she explains. “So when you don’t have time to chop up the raw meat yourself because you’re busy getting the kids off to school, or you’re travelling, you can pour Carna4 in a bowl and rest assured that your dog is going to be okay.”

Besides the convenience factor, Ringo says her whole food approach to pet food translates into better health for the family pet. “We know Carna4 makes a difference,” she says, “and I think I’m prouder of that than anything else.”

This article was originally published in the April/May 2024 issue of Food in Canada.