Tummy Crunchies help protect your horse’s stomach by buffering and neutralizing gastric acid before and during stressful situations. Horses produce up to 16 gallons of acid a day, that when not constantly absorbed by forage, can quickly irritate the stomach lining causing severe pain. Tummy Crunchies begin neutralizing acid on contact, and are a fast, effective, and delicious way to keep your horse comfortable in stressful situations.

Transcript

HOST: Liz Ehrlich, it's been a long time since you and I sat down to talk about Equine Elixirs. Welcome.

LIZ: It has been, yes. Thank you. Good to be here.

HOST: In preparation, I went in to look at the website. I can't believe that you now have 16 individual items. And I think what's unique about your company is that each item deals with a specific issue that a horse might have. For example, I want to make sure my horse is hydrated in hot weather. Now you're going to be launching Tummy Crunchies. But I want to just ask you, did you have any idea when you started this company because of an issue your horse had, one specific issue, that you were going to be this large this quick? Did you have any idea where you were going? 

LIZ: No, I don't think that I assumed that it would get to be as large as it is, but mostly because I was just focused on doing my best with the first product that we created, which was Ulceraser. And then every step of the way, when there was a need for a product in the market to do something better, in a more natural alternative than something else that existed, I just became so singularly focused on that product that it was all consuming. Then when you fast forward eight years and here we are, it's extremely exciting and rewarding because it means that the horses have responded well to the products and the clients are happy with how their horses are doing. So more than anything else, it's just such positive reinforcement that everything we're doing has been so beneficial for the horses that we're looking to serve.

HOST: It's such a great moment to just take pause and say, you'retalking about launching two new products every year foreight years. Congratulations. And now we're going to get up to Tummy Crunchies, which again, the names are getting really fun also. Who cannot love something called Tummy Crunchies and who cannot want to put it in their mouth and eat it? But we'll getto that a little bit later. Okay, walk me through Tummy Crunchies, what it does. I had no idea when I noticed that my horses graze all the time that part of the reason for that is because of what is coming into their stomachs on a consistent basis that should not be sitting there in an empty stomach. Let's walk through the problem it solves first. And then let's talk about what exactly Tummy Crunchies is.

LIZ: So horses are designed as grazing animals, which means that they produce gastric acid all day, not just like people that producegastric acid when they eat. So horses can produce about 16 gallons of acid a day, which is a tremendous irritant in their stomach.

HOST: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I've got to interrupt. 16 gallons a day? Yes. Where does it go?

LIZ: Well, it gets mixed around in the stomach and it's used to break down all of the food to help them digest all the nutrients. But because there is so much acid, that is part of the reason why horses are so susceptible to ulcers. So for horses that are not grazing all day or are in their stalls a lot or have a small number of well-defined mealtimes, they are at a higher risk for ulcers and stomach upset.

HOST: Or if they're going to a horse show and they're going to be showing all day, they’re not grazing.

LIZ: Absolutely. And that's sort of why we focused on wanting to create a product that is designed to buffer acid on contact for short periods of time when they are most at risk for that gastric upset. That was initially the thought behind Tummy Gummies when we created Tummy Gummies, which was a way to buffer acid on contact, for about 40 minutes at a time. And the Tummy Gummies were hugely successful.

HOST: Now, what would some of the symptoms be that somebody might notice in their horse that nobody pays enough attention to and that this particular issue goes undealt with? Well, I think these days people are very aware of the gastric issues in horses. 20 years ago, it wasn't something that people were thinking about, but today it's very much at the forefront of their minds. So horses that might act a little agitated, they might pin their ears when you groom them or when you're putting on the saddle, they suck back and are resistant to the leg. Sometimes they might look like they're losing weight or their coat doesn't look particularly healthy. These are all signs of horses that have some stomach issues, but people are very tuned into that these days and are very focused on ways to try and keep them comfortable.

HOST: Okay, so what's the product, Tummy Crunchies, what's in it and how does it work?

LIZ: So Tummy Crunchies is basically a crunchy spinoff of our tummy gummy. And the reason for that is because the gummies have been hugely successful. But every once in a while we hear about a horse that maybe doesn't take to the gummy consistency as well as all the other horses. And we don't want to leave anybody out. So we did get feedback from a few people that said, I really want to be able to offer this product to my horse. Is there any way you could make it in a crunchy format, because I think my horse is more of a crunchy kind of guy, not so much a gummy kind of guy? So we spent quite a lot of time well over a year trying to formulate a crunchy version of the gummy. And the reason why that was so difficult is because we didn't want to introduce sugar and starch and other things that are really bad for the horse's digestive system, which typically are things that you need in order to bake a cookie. They use a lot of starch, they use a lot of sugar, things that we don't want to put in a cookie for a horse.

The gummy allowed us to create a vegan gummy that didn't have sugar and didn't have a high starch content. So to then take that concept and put it into a cookie, which is traditionally almost all sugar and starch became very complicated, so it did take us over a year to formulate it correctly. But in terms of the active ingredients and what makes it work, it has the same amount of calcium carbonate and magnesium oxide as the Tummy Gummies. Those are the active ingredients that will buffer gastric acid on contact for about 40 minutes at a time. 

HOST: Wow. So basically you put a bunch in your pocket or your groom's pocket or wherever, and you can pull them out. You give them three or four as I understand it. Is that right? 

LIZ: That's right.

HOST: And then within 15 minutes, the absorption has begun. And how long does it last, Liz? How long does it stay potent in there?

LIZ: So it actually starts buffering acid in as little as five minutes. The gastric acid, the pH will start to rise from around two to over eight. And that happens within the first five minutes. And it will reach its peak buffering capacity within about 15 minutes. And it will buffer for about 40 to 45 minutes at a time. The good news is you can always give another three or four cookies if you want to prolong the effect.

HOST: So if I'm riding in a class at the Hampton Classic, for example, I saddle up, I can give this to my horse at the gate.

LIZ: Absolutely. So what I typically do is I give the Tummy Crunchies when I'm putting on the bridle, because by the time I'm putting on the bridle, I'm basically ready to go walk out to the mounting block and get on. So within the first five minutes, those Tummy Crunchies are already buffering acid. By the time I'm riding, the horse is comfortable, and I'll keep a few extra in my pocket, and if I end up riding a little longer than anticipated, I can always give a couple more Tummy Crunchies.

HOST: Now I know you, you tasted it, right?

LIZ: More than once.

HOST: Okay. What does it taste like?

LIZ: I would say it tastes like a combination of oats and honey, even though we don't use oats and we use sugar-free honey. The Tummy Crunchie itself is a combination of chia, beet pulp. It has some pumpkin seed in it. And so when you bake all these things together with the sugar-free honey, it takes on kind of like an oat y kind of flavor, and they're quite good. We did have a long road to go when it came to the flavor profile, because when we first started, it did not taste very good. I didn't like the taste of it. Some of the horses didn't like the taste of it. Bella, of course, eats absolutely everything, so she is not a discerning palate. But there was even a prototype or two that Bella turned her nose up at, and then I really knew we were in trouble. But over the course of probably five months, we must have had 30 different variations of flavor profiles. And I would have the people at the warehouse baking different prototypes every 45 minutes, and then after they cooled, drive them over to the barn, where we have 12 horses, so that on a daily basis, we could sample five or six different prototypes at a time. And it wasn't until every single horse, and we've got two very picky eaters here, it wasn't until every single horse ate it that I knew that we finally had the right prototype.

HOST: Now, Liz, is this for every horse?

LIZ: It is for every horse. The reason for that is because it's combined NSC content, which is the sugar and starch content is under 6%. That means that it's safe, even for metabolic horses. So for people that have to be very careful about the types of treats and feed they give their horses to limit sugar and starch intake, this is something that is even safe for them. Every horse can benefit from improved gastric health and by helping buffer gastric acid. Sometimes the limiting factor is the amount of sugar and starch that you may be providing in a treat that you're giving them, but the way this product was designed, the Tummy Crunchies are safe for every horse.

HOST: You know, it's funny because everybody wants to give their horse a treat, just like you give your dog a treat or you give yourself a treat, let's face it, right? And for me to realize that this is now a treat that I can give, every time I think of my horse's stomach, I'm always paralyzed between colic and everything else. It's like the one thing you're always worried about. What a great way to be able to say, okay, this treat is so safe, but every time my horse eats it, it's also gaining a benefit to assist it in its digestion. You know, really great.

LIZ: That's what I find most exciting about it, which is yes, we all want to give our horses treats because it's fun for us to do and they're great animals and they deserve it for putting up with a lot of the things that we ask of them. So why not give them something that also actually benefits their stomach.

HOST: Well, thank you. What a great explanation. I know it's going to sell really well. Every single product, by the way, that you launch does take off right away because you're always addressing a problem that hasn't necessarily been dealt with before. So congratulations on Tummy Crunchies, but, and because you're so averse to going public on anything, is there anything you want to share with anybody about what might be next? 

LIZ: Well, we do have a couple of things in the pipeline. We don't launch anything until we know it's going to be successful. And that's a combination of testing it on a lot of different test subjects, horses that we know, trainers that we know to get feedback. We do a ton of lab analysis. So until we know that our product is going to be successful, we don't launch anything, but we are getting close to launching a few new products. One is Slimer, and that will also be out towards the end of the year. This is going to be a liquid gastric product that is basically designed to coat the stomach to help prevent acid erosion. So sometimes people will dose something like sucralfate before they ride, but there are some contraindications when you're giving a drug like sucralfate, because it can affect nutrient absorption and the absorption of other medications. So we wanted to create a natural alternative to sort of work as a temporary coating agent that will not interfere with drug absorption. So those are the two new products we have. And then sort of really the biggest thing we have going on is what's going to be our new Elixirs Mixers system, which is going to be a way for people to pre-dose and pre-package into AM and PM bags all of their supplements.

HOST: Which is great. I mean, and I love the way you're putting it together in terms of how it can be sent in different ways. It's fabulous. So easy to take on the road in the individual packets, everything else. I mean, I've heard a little bit about it, but wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

Thank you, Liz, for taking this time with us to introduce this.

LIZ: It's very, very exciting. Thanks for having me.