ChewMax Pet Products
Slow-roasted bones, jerky and biscuits made from Michigan-grown USDA ingredients at a Paw Paw plant you can buy from at the door.
🇺🇸 American Manufacturing
Our assessment
Company details
Where ChewMax Pet Products products are made
“In our expansive manufacturing facility, we make: High-quality dog treats / Dog and cat toys / Catnip products,” and the company invites customers to “come to our manufacturing facility to buy them on-site.” The address in the footer is the plant. Even the shop fixtures are local: “our handcrafted, Michigan made racks.”
“All bone varieties are sourced in the USA and manufactured at our facility. Bones are slow roasted…” — and, more specifically, “We make all of our natural treats from Michigan-grown, high-quality, USDA ingredients.” The cleaning is done “through a natural, proprietary process, rather than using bleach or other harsh chemicals.”
This is why the label here is American Manufacturing rather than Made in USA. ChewMax’s own rawhide page reads: “ChewMax Pet Products offers a premium, Brazilian rawhide.” Two of thirteen collections are rawhide, and the Natural Rawhide Chips page carries no origin claim at all. A company that names the imported line on its own site is easier to trust about the rest.
An unqualified Made-in-USA claim has to cover the product it appears on. ChewMax’s own sitewide sentence — “All of our products are made in the US” — sits alongside its own description of Brazilian rawhide, so this profile applies the claim to the treats made at Paw Paw and excludes the rawhide lines by name.
The story
ChewMax Pet Products has been in Paw Paw, Michigan since 2011, a family-owned and operated business making dog treats, cat treats, catnip products and toys in one building.
The initials on the packaging are not the ones people assume. “While many people assume they stand for ChewMax,” the company writes of the C.M. mark, “they are in remembrance of Curtis Michener, nephew of the owner.”
The catalog runs to thirteen collections and around eighty-four products — bones, feet, jerky, biscuits, catnip, cat treats, toys and apparel — sold three ways: wholesale, online, and over the counter at the factory. The biscuit line, Active Adventures, is made “from applesauce, flaxseed, and other all-natural ingredients” and packed in resealable three-ounce bags.
Why they matter
Dog treats are one of the harder categories to buy honestly. A great deal of what is sold as American is imported and repacked, and the rawhide trade in particular has a long history of origin ambiguity that buyers have learned to be wary of.
ChewMax’s answer is to be specific in both directions: Michigan-grown USDA ingredients and its own roasting line for the natural treats, and a plainly labeled Brazilian rawhide for the rawhide. The second disclosure is what makes the first believable.
It is also a genuinely small operation you can walk into. A treat company where the factory, the shop and the head office are all the same address is an increasingly rare thing to find behind anything in a pet aisle.
Shop ChewMax Pet Products products
Slow-roasted beef bones, venison and bacon jerky, Active Adventures biscuits, catnip products and cat treats — made at the Paw Paw, Michigan plant.
Shop all ChewMax Pet Products products →Visit ChewMax Pet Products website →
ChewMax Pet Products questions
Are ChewMax treats made in the USA?
The natural treats are. “All of our products are made in the US, and our bone products are sourced right here in Michigan,” the company writes, and “We make all of our natural treats from Michigan-grown, high-quality, USDA ingredients.” The rawhide is the exception — see below.
What about the rawhide?
ChewMax says it is imported: “ChewMax Pet Products offers a premium, Brazilian rawhide available in natural, chicken, bacon, peanut butter and vanilla flavors.” Two of the thirteen collections are rawhide, and this profile’s American-manufacturing claim does not cover them.
Where is ChewMax based?
162 Commercial Avenue, Paw Paw, Michigan 49079 — the plant, the shop and the company address are the same place, and customers can buy on site.
What does the C.M. on the packaging mean?
Not ChewMax. “They are in remembrance of Curtis Michener, nephew of the owner,” the company says.