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ECS business students selling dog treats for class

The Estevan Comprehensive School entrepreneurship class is making no bones about it: they believe homemade dog treats are an untapped market and are selling them this Christmas season.
ECS
ECS Entrepreneurship 30 Students package dog treats at the school Friday morning

The Estevan Comprehensive School entrepreneurship class is making no bones about it: they believe homemade dog treats are an untapped market and are selling them this Christmas season.

Meghan Wright is one of the students in charge of the operation, which hit a fever pitch in class putting six treats in each bag to get ready for the weekend sale.

“We had lots of different trials,” said Wright. “We had about 30 different dog treats because everybody had to make their own, and we found the one that worked the best and made the best shapes when we baked them.”

The bags sell for $5 each and include the homemade dog treats that the students created. 

“We also donate $1 to the Humane Society with each bag,” said Wright. “We thought it was a good donation opportunity.”

The marketing will be done personally and also through trade shows. They will also be trying to get into the Estevan Farmers Market and giving opportunities for the public to buy them.

“We’re going to be advertising about giving dog treats for Christmas and doing stuff like that,” she said. “Also just (marketing them as) normal dog treats because lots of people like to treat their dogs.”

Learning these lessons in the process, from idea to creation to selling, is one of the reasons those 24 students in the class who want to be involved in business will take the course, but it’s not the only reason.  

“I think it’s a good way to learn hard work and perseverance and teamwork,” she Wright. “Somebody has to work on something before you can do it, so you work on getting stuff down on time.”
Each student has a goal to sell 100 treats each, plus the extra they’ll sell at trade shows and markets. 

The different approach this year was as a result of the challenge teacher Josh LeBlanc gave to them when it came to providing something different, ‘out of the box’ that they haven’t seen from other groups.

“They’ve tried to do a run of clothing for a while and the last just didn’t succeed so what we’re looking for is something different, something the market hasn’t seen,” said LeBlanc. “This is something I don’t think the people in Estevan have seen at all, so they’re going to get some traction through it that way and it’s just something completely different that they can do.”

This wasn’t the only idea this class had but it was something that stood out for LeBlanc.

“They’re the ones that have to come up with the ideas and pitch it themselves,” said LeBlanc. “I give them the assignment, they actually have to analyze the market and see what the market is like and … the demographics, who it would appeal to and the costs involved and they pitch it to the class. Based on that pitch, the class votes on the idea they like the best.”

A lot of students own dogs and haven’t seen anything like this idea.

Other classes that have gone through this, so trade shows and packaging aren’t new, because they’ve done this with cookie dough and truffles in previous years but animal-specific treats are new.

As they’ve done the initial capitalization for the manufacturing and packing of the product, the profits will be split based upon how many shares each student was able to buy.