Bag of Bones Barkery owners make all-natural dog treats
By Lisa Zola-DeLibero
Gregg and Melissa Bernhardt had two dreams. They wanted to make healthy treats for dogs, and they wanted to work together doing something they both loved to do.
After graduating from Nottingham High School in 1999, the high school sweethearts attended Rutgers University together, got married, started jobs as a journalist and an engineer, respectively, and began working out of their basement in 2005, cutting hundreds of individual dog bones, by hand, that they made with the healthiest ingredients.
The couple, calloused fingers and all, hoped that one day, this healthy pet treat thing would catch on so that they could change their careers and follow their dreams. And it did.
Bag of Bones Barkery is a pet supply store, but one with a special focus: providing healthy snacks and food for our furry—and not so furry—friends. Located at 364 Route 33 in Hamilton, Bag of Bones is the place where customers go to purchase products that help pets maintain a healthy existence.
“Everything that we make here is completely all-natural, human-grade and hand-selected,” Gregg Bernhardt said. “We work with local vets who endorse our treats because they are super healthy for animals. Everything that we make and sell would be something we would give to our own dogs, Chloe and Luke. We can tell you everything you want to know about every product in the store, and this helps the customer choose the best product for their pet’s individual needs.”
With mom and pop flare to the store, Gregg and Melissa said they will never lose sight of their initial goal, and continually stay on top of pet food news, pulling anything from the shelves that they feel may be detrimental to the health of an animal.
Bag of Bones carries not only natural brands of pet foods like Wellness, Natural Balance, and Blue Buffalo, but also small brands committed to independent stores that offer top-notch nutrition and quality assurance, such as Fromm, Zignature, Verus and Blackwood. They also stock freeze-dried and frozen raw foods and treats.
“We want the best nutrition for pets, especially for those with problems like dry skin, renal failure and even cancers,” Melissa Bernhardt said. “We have a lot of solutions for pretty much everything that a pet owner can think of. If we receive news about a product that has been linked to a problem, we will immediately get rid of it, and find another product to offer a customer with the same benefits, but one that is safer. We will spend as much time as the customer needs to answer any and all questions that they have pertaining to their pet.”
The Bernhardts know that taste is just as important to our pets’ taste buds as it is to our own, and they try to capture it in their brand of Barkery Bones, including their gourmet treat line Good Dog Gourmet. It’s apparently caught on, as the Bernhardts distribute their treats to five other states.
Pet owners can pick up treats in baked apple, carved chicken and country cheddar flavors, to name a few. Everything is made in the store, using fresh ingredients like chicken, bacon, honey, roasted peanuts and real bananas. The Bernhardts are also currently working on their own line of treats for cats.
“Our six cats at home are helping us, as far as taste is concerned,” Gregg said.
A huge portion of the business is custom cakes for pets. Bag of Bones makes cakes for all sorts of occasions—Gregg said they’ve done treats for everything from birthdays to “Bark Mitvah,” obedience school graduations and more.
“Any milestone, we can make a cake,” he said. “For those last minute occasions, we always offer pre-made cakes in our refrigerators that can be personalized however you’d like.”
A true test of success in business is the long-term customer base, and Gregg said Bag of Bones has many customers who have been coming to the store since the Bernhardts opened their first store in 2007.
“We have become good friends with many of them, especially our very first customers, Diane and John McHutchinson, whom we met at our first ever craft fair in 2006,” Gregg said. “All of our customers are wonderful. When the pets come in, we call them by their names because we have gotten to know every single one.”
And the staff at Bag of Bones has become family, if they weren’t already.
“My mom Linda works here, and it is great to work with her,” Melissa Bernhardt said. “We also have, on our staff, Charlotte Collins, Brenda Scanlan, Linda Hobson, Shie Chau, Cassie Brennan, and Whitney Lewis who are all store clerks, and whom we are so happy to have here at the store, helping us to make the community the best it can be for our pets.”
Bag of Bones Barkery is located at 364 Route 33, near the intersection with Whitehorse-Mercerville Road, in Mercerville. Web: bagofbonesbarkery.com. Phone: (609) 528-0101.
A selection of treats made at Bag of Bones Barkery in Hamilton. (Photo by Albert Rende.),
