About Us

Psst, hello! My name is Hardy. Let me tell you about my home and my family. The human family I live with, I mean. Some of my four-legged colleagues might think I live in paradise. Well, why don’t you take a look for yourself?

How Everything Started

Surely you’ve experience this. A little decision in your job, a slight diversion in life, taken out of curiosity, and your future changes tremendously, influencing a lot of people and even more dogs. This is what happened to my owner Lorenz Clausen and his brother Wellem. The two master butchers were working at their parents business in Ostenfeld. That’s in North Friesland if you did not know. The family business was successfully active in its third generation and the brothers were already very hard-working. I think so at least because I was not around back then. They once told me about a barrel at the butcher’s shop. It was always full of delicacies dog owners would buy for their little darlings. The brothers used to walk past that barrel multiple times a day and one day, an idea was born. They wanted to start concentrating a bit more on dog nutrition. As you can imagine, I would have loved this idea back then. But in 1996 I wasn’t even born yet.

Infrastructure

On January 2, 1996 the brothers established a company called Pansen Express in Börm. Guys, the only thing missing at that time was me as their advisor. Because they had to move the company to Lehe the very next day. They did not take into consideration just how hungry dogs could be and that a garage would not be enough as part of the food chain. Well, after the move everything ran smoothly. The number of dog customers expanded constantly and the news of a new and tasty food source spread far and wide among us dogs. However I must confess, that the brothers Clausen and their family members worked really hard to publicize their Pansen Express. They still talk about how they went from door to door with a question. “Can we invite your dog to dinner?” Another part of that story is, that one of the brothers got bitten by a dog as a thank you for the invitation. But humans like to exaggerate sometimes because I can’t really imagine one of my colleagues doing something like that.

In 1998 the family moved back to Ostenfeld. They sold the parental business and let the premises so that the business with the dog food could continue. At some point the CEOs started looking for a bigger location and found it here in Ellingstedt. They started the production on May 3, 2003. And now here I am, spending most of my time making sure our products are varied, nutritious and healthy for the members of my species. This should not be too difficult for the humans to accomplish, after all Coppenrath & Wiese used to produce their cakes here. So the bipeds should know what is tasty. My owner says that they were received very well in Ellingstedt. If you want me to show you around the premises then you need to bring a lot of time. The premises of Pansen Express encompasses 33,000 square meters, whereby 18,000 square meters are roofed. Let me tell you, I enjoy wandering around the halls but there are some areas where I leave very quickly. Some of these areas have a temperature of minus 41 degrees Celsius. My owner tells me shock freezing the dog food is a gentle process because the food is cooled down very rapidly. There are also other areas with temperatures of minus 18 degrees Celsius, minus 10 degrees Celsius, minus 5 degrees Celsius which are important for a gentle defrosting. I think this is an interesting process and I am sure there must be something to it. I personally have sampled numerous products from Pansen Express and all of them were delicious. Oh? You want a detailed list of all of our products? No problem! I will tell you all about them in a minute. First, I need to tell you that the factory has a very sophisticated energy management with its own technicians. The humans attach great importance to this because it is good for the environment. All the roofs are equipped with photovoltaic systems and a big heat recovery unit heats the building during the winter. You know what? They even have their very own workshop for their forklifts! I really don’t like those things though. It always feels like they are chasing me around. That is probably because I am not allowed to walk around the premises on my own. But how else am I supposed to tell you about anything? The 70 employees are all incredibly nice to me. There are master butchers and housewives and many other professions among them. But they don’t tell me anything about their work. Well, I probably wouldn’t remember much of it anyway.

Our Products

Before I can tell you about all the treats that are leaving our premises every day, I need to tell you about BARF (Biologically Appropriate Raw Food). Your dog certainly already knows all about this, but it might be difficult for you humans to understand it. For me it simply means species appropriate nutrition. This nutrition is not only healthier for us, it is also not that much more expensive than other kinds of food. And to be honest, I have heard humans prefer fresh food over canned food too. But now I have to get to the most important part. My canine friends would surely like to finally know what we are producing here. This will not be an easy task for me, since talking about these thing will certainly make my mouth start to water. There are trucks leaving our premises heading for Sweden and Denmark but the name on the packages will be a different one. But first the goods need to come to us. I can tell you that there are some treats among these goods that come from other continents. Therefore out products not only consist of parts of beef, lamb, horse, fish, turkey and other kinds of poultry, but also of ostrich, elk and reindeer. Of course you will also find vegetables in there. The specialists around me here know exactly which product is the best for every sensitive dog stomach. Our quality management is monitoring the production constantly. And laboratory tests are carried out regularly at the KIN food institute, making sure all of our products are of category 3 food quality.

Oh, I need to take a quick break. Anne is calling me, she is my owner. She is married to Lorenz Clausen and works in Controlling. So if you, dear visitor, would like to get a good look at all of our products here are Pansen Express, I urge you to browse our website thoroughly. You will find an extensive dealer list describing where you can buy all of our products and treats. Because unfortunately here at home we are only producing the dog food. That means we probably won’t be able to meet each other in person. But you should visit this site from time to time. I will certainly have something new to talk about soon.