This Milwaukee company turns breweries' leftovers into dog treats

Nikki Collier says her small company is a serendipitous blend of her loves for craft beer and dogs.

Collier, 35, makes dog treats from breweries' spent grain and sells them under the name Leashless Lab. She has sold thousands of the treats pressed by hand into paw-shaped molds in less than a year. 

The treats are made from four ingredients: spent grain, peanut butter, flour and eggs.

"At our core, we're beer lovers and dog lovers," Collier said. 

Tonka, her 5-year-old, 85-pound Labrador retriever, serves as the company's primary taste tester. He was more than happy to help out when Collier started taking the spent grain from her husband Kevin Goss' home brewing endeavors to make treats a couple years ago. 

Tonka's sign of approval: tapping his nose to the bottom of a pint glass to say "cheers."

In the brewing process, spent grain is drained from the beer after all the sugars and proteins have been extracted. It's taken out of the mix before the hops are added. 

Breweries are often looking for ways to offload spent grain. Black Husky Brewing in Riverwest had been giving its spent grain to a local farmer before Collier asked about using some for her treats.

Black Husky said yes. It's a perfect match for the dog-friendly bar, said co-owner Toni Eichinger. 

Many breweries have devised innovative ways to repurpose their grains, and Collier isn't the first to make a dog biscuit.

Leashless Lab's connection to multiple local breweries sets it apart. The treats are made using grains repurposed from several local breweries, including Black Husky and Raised Grain Brewing Company in Waukesha.

Black Husky still gives most of its spent grain to the farmer, except when Collier picks some up for her Leashless Lab treats a few times a month. 

Eichinger said her 17-year-old dog, Smokey, loves the treats but can get too many hanging around the brewery. "We had to make a rule," Eichinger said. 

Leashless Lab treats are sold in a dozen breweries, pet stores and grocery stores across the Milwaukee area. The company recently started selling at Outpost Natural Foods.

Leashless Lab's customers doubled just in the past six months. 

The company sells a 6-ounce bag of treats for $7.99. It also sells its logo — an image of Tonka tapping his nose on a beer bottle — on T-shirts and pint glasses. 

Leashless Lab is tapping into a growing market. Pet ownership is on the rise, especially with younger generations. Pets are already a $69 billion industry in the United States. And, according to a Wakefield study, millennials are more likely to spend more and place priority on purchasing natural foods for their pets. 

"We want to use healthy ingredients — anything we would eat ourselves," Collier said. She bakes fresh treats every Tuesday in space she rents at Cash & Carry Catering, a commercial kitchen on W. Tower Ave. in Milwaukee used by food trucks. 

Collier wants to give back to the community, too. The company donates 10% of all profits to the Wisconsin Humane Society. The goal is to source all ingredients — not just the spent grains — locally. The eggs come from S&R Egg Farm in Whitewater. For now, she buys the organic peanut butter at Costco.

Collier and Goss wanted to leave a mark on Milwaukee after returning to their hometown. The couple, who both grew up in the Milwaukee suburbs, moved back in 2011 after living in Minneapolis for a decade.

Once Collier started making the spent grain dog treats, everything else fell into place. Tonka and his friends tested the treats, and partnerships with area breweries formed.

Last spring, Leashless Lab began selling retail. The company is now Collier's full-time job after leaving a career in sports service retail. 

Black Husky started selling the treats in May, and Eichinger said she likes working with another local entrepreneur.

"Starting a small business is hard, and Nikki doesn't miss a beat," Eichinger said. 

​​​​​​Sarah Hauer can be reached at shauer@journalsentinel.com or on Twitter @SarahHauer and Instagram @HauerSarah.