Hi! I’m Cori, and I just wanted to give a huge THANK YOU for considering our products!! Our Purr Say line of products is the culmination of a lot of hard work and love, and it makes me happy to see people like you enjoying our products!
As a bit of background, I conceived of Purr Say Catnip Toys in 2018 and it’s been my inspiration and passion ever since. If you’ll spare a couple of minutes, I’d love to share some of that story with you.
I’ve been a Colorado resident since moving here in 1996. My love for the outdoors (and nature) came from my dad, who shared his love of camping, canoeing and skiing with me since I was old enough to walk, and my love of gardening came from my mom. Together they helped me develop an appreciation for the environment.
Our society is glutted with consumer items that, once tossed into a landfill, don’t break down, and often leach out chemicals and metals that are poisonous to all that they touch. The environmental impact of this accumulation is hard to truly grasp, and yet it’s happening and accelerating all around us.
Every time I was at a store – I kept noticing all the pet products (and all the packaging) are made with petrochemicals – so much plastic. When you are done with the products – they just clog up landfills and pollute the Earth, as many of them aren’t recyclable or compostable.
All the catnip products were equally disappointing – also made with synthetic materials/plastics with stale, weak , dried-out and dull catnip. There seems to be no attention to the quality of the strains, the freshness of the products, or the actual enjoyment by your furry feline friend.
I kept thinking “we can do better than this” – we are a country full of innovators. We can create products that are environmentally friendly and offer the same or better value. We can leverage US supply chains and vendors. We can show this business model can be sustainable and successful. We can be supportive of US-based supply chains. There can be a bio-based catnip toy that incorporates high-quality catnip grown with care and integrates biodegradability into the basic product design (both the product and the packaging). We can break our plastic addictions and start to make a small difference.
My inspiration was that I should take the lead in doing this, even though I had never been involved in any consumer product development of any kind before. So, at nights and on weekends when I wasn’t doing my day job, I went to work building a small business that embodied this philosophy that we create sustainable products and operations. Something akin to a “do no harm” approach. We aren’t perfect, and each day we strive to be a little bit better…but we are still ahead of the pack.
So in 2019 I launched Adatto, Inc., a sole proprietorship, with my line of Purr Say catnip toys. Our little woman-owned small business began it’s journey!
And things were progressing nicely, until…. enter the pandemic, which derailed much of the momentum I had been building. It was then that I realized that I needed help to fulfill my vision in an environment like this and to grow the business in the long term as well. That’s when the perfect solution came into my life!
One of my goals has always been to create fair and sustainable relationships with employees/co-owners (because to me if you want to help your community, the key to a strong economy is stable employment). So when I was presented with the opportunity to bring on two college students and a recent college graduate (all looking for work during an awful economic environment for young people) to help grow the company as co-owners, I jumped on it! Their perspectives and energy are the perfect fit to help me continue to grow the company and prove that we can indeed reimagine our consumer product models. They’ve become an integral part of everything that Purr Say is and will be.
Customers matter to us – both the feline and human variety. Our whole goal is to provide quality goods that are environmentally responsible – without being preachy. Just demonstrate through our actions it is possible – that we can all do better.
As I get older, I have become increasingly aware of the need for systemic changes in how we care for the environment, and I’ve felt powerless most of my life on how to make a difference. Catnip won’t save the planet, but each small decision, each small choice towards sustainable practices is another small step towards new possibilities. Every little step matters, and it’s up to all of us to make it happen, together.
Thank you,
Cori