Queer-owned business spotlight: Talking to Yummers’ Jonathan Van Ness and Antoni Porowski

On-screen, you’ve seen Jonathan Van Ness and Antoni Porowski helping individuals find their confidence through self-care and food. But beyond Queer Eye, Van Ness and Porowski are passionate pet owners who embarked on creating a line of pet food full of high-quality ingredients.

Yummers was founded in 2022 by Van Ness, Porowski and industry veteran, Rebecca Frechette Rudisch. The brand offers a line of gourmet and functional mix-ins that pets love. Both cats and dogs can enjoy a range of products including scrumptious cheddar cheese mix-ins or a heart-healthy supplement made with taurine.

We spoke with Porowski and Van Ness on the inspiration behind Yummers and their advice to LGBTQ+ business owners on the rise.

Reviewed: So you do it all. You've both got seven seasons of Queer Eye on Netflix plus running a hair care line or writing cookbooks. What made you both want to dive into the world of pet food?

Jonathan Van Ness: Well, I'm also a pet parent to five cats and three dogs and seven chickens, actually newly six chickens because Victoria died a few days ago, which is really sad. All my cats and dogs are from rescues and one of my cats, Liza Meownelli had really intense stomach issues when she was a kitten because she is a panleukopenia survivor.

So I got really into animal food then because she just had really chronic, this is TMI, but she had chronic diarrhea all over the place. So that's when I started learning more about pet food. It was right at that time that the opportunity for Yummers came along and I was like, oh, this is like, so up my alley.

I'm really passionate about this. I saw how when I get better ingredients and less refined ingredients, without so much extra stuff in them, it made Liza so much better. So that was some of my inspo.

Antoni Porowski: Well first I got a pet. I always had miniature dachshunds growing up. The first one was from Poland where they didn't have dog food at the time in the ‘80s. Our dog was raised on cottage cheese, All-Bran, and chopped ham every morning for breakfast. So the thought of giving my pet human-grade food was something that was normalized from a very young age.

Then when the pandemic hit, I went from 100 to zero and was left with a lot of time on my hands. In Austin, a friend of mine recommended Austin Pets Alive as a shelter. I went to the APA with the intention only to foster a dog, but of course, it was a fail. Now she's part of the family and she takes up 90% of my brain space. Then I started exploring what was out there in terms of the dog food world. And I saw things that I liked. I saw things that I didn't like. I started to educate myself because I love to cook, and that's such an integral part of who I am as an individual. I couldn't help myself and I started preparing meals for my dog.

This was something that I had a lot of conversations with JVN about, with JVN being a pet parent to about 70,000 animals at this point.

We're both very obsessed with our respective pets, even though I only have one, but I feel like she's [Antoni’s dog, Neon] a full-time job sometimes, and I just want to give her the best life. It was something that we've just like casual conversations and, you know, when he [JVN] decided to get a dog in Austin as well.

I was telling him about what I would do for Neon like slow-roasting salmon skin side down and mixing that into her kibble to make it a little more desirable. I was kind of doing what we are doing at Yummers without knowing that it was really a thing or having a name for it. So then, then the opportunity came about to join forces with Rebecca and then the whole team at Yummers

Reviewed: I love it. The pet food aisles are so packed right now. What sets Yummers apart from the other brands?

JVN: Well, I think that a really big thing for us is that it's the quality of our ingredients. We freeze-dry our ingredients and just the simplicity of our formulas—there's no extra stuff that doesn't need to be there. Everything has a purpose.

My oldest cat Larry, he's just a little bit pickier with food than he used to be. I love our toppers for him and I use, it depends—sometimes I do our digestive one for him and then other times I just do the beef liver because he's just finicky with food.

We wouldn't want to eat the same thing every day. He's 10 now and he just turned on his old food, like, wouldn't eat it anymore. So now when I sprinkle Yummers on top of it or when I crunch up our little beef liver parts, he devours it and it's helping him keep his weight up because obviously when cats get older, you want to make sure their weight stays up.

The freeze-dried angle is really important because that freeze dries the nutrients at the time it’s made. So it's higher nutrients and more nutrient dense. I think our functional formulas just work so well. So there's the skin and coat one which all of my animals use, especially during seasonal changes like when they get the flakeys. We don't have the flakeys at this house anymore because of our skin and coat formula. Also the calming one is really great for any travel days or Fourth of July stuff.

But back to the question of why ours is different. Our formulas are innovative. Our functional ones, especially calming, heart health, bone health, skin and coat, and digestive—they're just amazing.

And then the cheddar cheese, the beef liver, and the chicken breast, those are just like really tasty yum yum. And those are really useful too if you have like a finickier eater. Everything has a point. It's performance-driven. The meal toppers are really interesting because it's a useful thing. As I said, our animals won't eat the same thing all the time.

When you have this big bag of food that you spent however much money on, you don't want to switch it. You can get a few Yummers toppers, get through that bag, and it can be a supplement as opposed to a full replacement. I think it's a very useful tool, and it's one that I didn't really see very much before we started Yummers.

AP: I certainly don't wanna speak ill of other brands. I don't shop for myself, but I shop for my dog a crazy amount. So I'm constantly trying out different products.

What I think we've tried to focus on at Yummers is how I actually approach my cookbooks and my recipes. My MO is to always overcomplicate everything and to add way too many elements. It's like a Michael Bay movie. But what I've learned from the stuff out there is that what my dog responds to is limited ingredients that are high quality.

I've been talking for years about how in Italian and Japanese cuisine they really focus on the care they put into their ingredients. That’s a strong focal point of what we try to do at Yummers. I'm learning that a lot of baked kibbles, if it's baked at a really high temperature, has carcinogens. So we stay away from that. We really focus on freeze-dried and dehydrated. There are things that I knew going in—the power of omega threes and salmon oil. But I had no idea that papaya was actually really great for dogs and their digestive tracts. I would say what sets us apart is a deep obsession and passion for our pets. We just wanting to give them this incredible life with as many years as humanly possible.

Reviewed: How involved were you with the creation of these products and specifically like the flavors? Like, did they let you test, did your cats and dogs get to test?

JVN: Oh my God. So, so much testing that took a very long time. We started that, jeez, right when the pandemic started. Even before that, it was 2019 and 2020 when we were like getting all of our bags and testing and trying everything. When we were getting into toppers Rebecca [Frechette Rudisch, the Yummers CEO] was instrumental in getting us there.

It was through all of our work and all of our meetings, even like Liza Meownelli, our panleukopenia survivor and her stomach issues. That's where we got the idea to do the digestive formula. Because we had these probiotic pills that we were using, we were having to open it and sprinkle it in the food, and it tasted bad and made them not want to eat it. It wasn't doing much good if they wouldn't eat it. A lot of our pet parent needs, we were able to center in Yummers.

But I'm not an expert in flavors. My animals, except for Larry who is picky, everyone else just eats all the stuff so they were obsessed with all of it.

AP: Full disclosure, Neon will eat a slipper off the street if she's not being monitored. So she's not the pickiest eater, but there are a lot of pets out there who are.

We did some really aggressive pet testing to make sure that we have what I refer to as high-prize treats.

Things like salmon oil and beef liver. These are things that, you know I actually love but a lot of humans aren't really into. But these are things our pets go wild for and are actually really good for them as well. I've never been part of a company like this before in such a meaningful way where it just wasn't a one-off. I want a low, slow burn—something that has staying power. We’re all really proud of Yummers.

Reviewed: I can tell just from the way you're talking the passion that you feel for your animals and what they're eating, and that kind of passion always comes through in the product. So love hearing that too.

JVN: I think another important thing for us, Antoni and I, to know as co-founders is that we're not experts in pet nutrition. We are experts in being pet parents and wanting to be the best pet parents possible.

So we had great pet nutritionists and vets that helped us create the formulas to help really round out and supplement our pets' diets and make sure that it was made efficaciously safely and, you know, to the standards that we need.

Like I'm a licensed cosmetologist. I feel really good about my expertise there and I've learned a lot about pet parenting and about pet diets. But we did have experts that were able to obviously guide that production process of how to make it, what to make it, how to make sure it's perfect for the diets for our animals.

Reviewed: Do your pets have a favorite flavor or product?

JVN: Well Larry is really picky actually and Liza is too sometimes. Larry loves the beef liver the most, that's his first favorite. And he also loves the cheddar cheese, the cheddar cheese sprinkly.

Liza really likes the digestive one, which really has helped her a lot, and also the skin and coat one because Liza had really intense skin flakes. So she's basically on the skin and coat formula all the time, every morning. So those would be her favorites.

And then the dogs are obsessed with all of them. They've never met one that they don't like. But with them we use them as they need. It's really hot in Texas right now so they're all on skin and coat. I feel like when it is hot and like they're inside and outside and it's like dry air conditioning, but then it's like really humid outside, their little skin gets pissed.

So the skin and coat has been really clutch for us. And actually we really use our beef liver and chicken breasts as treats for our dog. We break them up into two to make it last longer.

But that's like a high reward. They really like that.

AP: So like I said, Neon truly eats it all. But I would say she is a dairy queen. She's obsessed with cheese. I'll give her little bits here and there. When we started the cheddar line, that’s the one that gets her the most excited. The texture and the crunch of it.

I actually give her the beef liver mixed with the cheddar mix over her existing food, and she's obsessed. But that said, the skin and coat, we went through a phase as well. She goes through this pretty wild shedding period a few times a year and that's something that I've been adding that she not only loves, but that's actually really great. And I have noticed a difference along with regular brushing and washing her and doing all that kind of stuff. It's been really helpful.

Reviewed: Are there any upcoming launches from Yummers that we can look forward to this year?

JVN: There's something really big, but I'm not supposed to exactly see what it is, but there's something major and we're really excited about it and it looks so delicious and I have to like, stop myself from eating it myself all the—I mean, using it myself all the time.

So I don't know what it is. I know what it is, you know what I mean? But its amazing. I'm so excited for it and the animals are so excited for it. And I'm excited to stop gatekeeping because my animals have been like all up on it, but other animals haven't had gotten to try it yet.

AP: I will say that we've put a lot of care into it. I think with pets there's so much that we can do in terms of improving their lives and just bringing them joy.

Reviewed: That's exciting. Do you know when it's coming? Like what month or what season?

JVN: Coming this summer!

Reviewed: All right, last question. So with it being Pride Month, do you have any advice for those in the LGBTQIA+ community who might be looking to start their own businesses?

JVN: Yes, I think being resilient and having like a shame resilience is really important because you're gonna have rejections. People are going to tell you no. People are gonna give you weird feedback. It's important to be able to sit with any sort of like rejection or shame or whatever and know that that's not a reflection on your ability to succeed or your worth or your value or how far you can go.

When I look back on my career, I feel like there have been so many setbacks, there's been so many nos. And I think in the earlier part of my career, those really got to me really hard and they really impacted me. It took me a lot longer to like dust myself off. I think the older that I get and the more disappointments or setbacks I've had, I'm able to dust myself off faster.

I feel like success really happens, not from when you get the success, but really like how quickly you dust yourself off when things don't go right. Because really the success is about just being in the right place at the right time. But if you're crying at your nachos, you're not going to be putting yourself out there.

AP: This is my first business so I certainly do not consider myself an expert by any means. But I will say that I think this is a kind of general rule of how I've approached life. I always try to surround myself with people who are more motivated, smarter, more educated, wiser, and funnier than I am. I hope for some kind of osmosis component. I think mentorship is something that's incredibly important too. If there is a business that you want to be starting, do your homework, do your research, and look at what's out there. I think part of the success of Yummers is because it truly does come from a personal place. I'm so deeply embedded and I'm so obsessed with my dog that yes, it's work, but there is a certain element of pleasure and joy as well. So every single time I'm pouring, you know, sprinkling a little bit of like the heart supplement over her food or giving her beef liver, I know that I'm trying to give her the best life possible. It brings me joy. The way she responds to it.

I'm not kidding you. Neon has the dumbest smile and she thanks me every single time after a meal. It just makes me happy. So I think when it comes from a really personal place, I think that really helps as like a driving force on the days when you might be a little more tired or not as, as motivated. It gives you a reason to keep going.

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