RGV Freeze-Dried Treats is a family-owned Texas small business based in San Antonio, with roots in the Rio Grande Valley and a simple mission: create better, more transparent, and accessible treats for the pets we consider family.

We believe pet parents should know exactly what they're feeding their animals. That's why we focus on simple, recognizable ingredients, small-batch production, and sourcing we can be proud of.

Our treats and chews are made from 100% all-natural meat, fish, and animal ingredients with no unnecessary fillers, artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives.

From Texas-raised beef and locally sourced rabbit and quail to seafood from the Texas Gulf Coast, we work to source locally whenever possible and build relationships with the farmers, ranchers, processors, and suppliers behind our ingredients.

What you see on the label is what your pet gets.

Our Story

RGV Freeze-Dried Treats began with one pet parent asking a simple question:

How can I give my own animals better treats and actually know what I'm feeding them?

Our founder, Dr. Mark Gracia, PharmD, grew up in the Rio Grande Valley and has always shared a deep connection with animals. His dog and cat, Jack and TJ (Tuxedo Joe), became the inspiration behind what would eventually become RGV Freeze-Dried Treats.

While attending pharmacy school in San Antonio, Mark began paying much closer attention to the treats he was buying for his own pets.

He kept running into the same frustration.

A bag might be labeled as a particular meat or organ, but when he opened it, the pieces were sometimes so processed or unrecognizable that he couldn't confidently tell what he was looking at.

Was this really beef liver? What part of the animal am I actually feeding? Why doesn't it look like what I expected?

Mark wanted something different: treats where pet parents could recognize what was inside the bag.

If the label says beef heart, we want you to be able to look at the treat and recognize beef heart. If it says shrimp, we want it to look like shrimp. If it's a whole quail, rabbit ear, chicken foot, or mackerel head, there shouldn't be any mystery about what you're feeding.

That desire for transparency became one of the principles behind RGV Freeze-Dried Treats:

Real ingredients should still look like real ingredients.

Better Treats Shouldn't Be Out of Reach

There was another problem Mark understood firsthand: Price.

RGV Freeze-Dried Treats was created while Mark was still a college student.

Like many students and young pet owners, he loved his animals and wanted to give them high-quality treats, but he also had a student budget.

He noticed that many of the treats he wanted to feed his pets could become expensive very quickly.

He didn't believe pet parents should have to choose between better ingredients and what they can realistically afford.

That experience continues to influence how we price our products today.

Whenever possible, we aim to keep our prices competitive with comparable treats found in chain stores. We aren't trying to make something expensive simply because it's locally sourced, small-batch, or made with quality animal ingredients.

We remember what it was like to stand in a store as a student, look at the price of a bag of treats, and wonder whether it fit into the budget.

That student is still someone we think about when we set our prices.

Whether you're a college student, a family with several pets, or simply someone trying to make better choices without overspending, we believe you should have access to simple, high-quality treats at a fair price.

Better treats shouldn't be reserved for people with bigger budgets.

Simple Was the Answer

Those experiences helped shape exactly what Mark wanted RGV Freeze-Dried Treats to become:

Real meat. Real organs. Real fish. Recognizable ingredients. Fair prices. No mystery.

Instead of taking whole ingredients and turning them into something unrecognizable, we embrace what they naturally are.

Some of our treats aren't perfectly shaped and that's the point.

A liver looks like liver.
A heart looks like heart.
A shrimp looks like shrimp.

Natural ingredients vary in size, shape, texture, and appearance because they're real food, not manufactured to look identical.

What you see on the label is what we want you to recognize when you open the bag.

From Pharmacy School to Pet Treats

Building RGV Freeze-Dried Treats happened alongside another major journey in Mark's life, earning his Doctor of Pharmacy degree.

What started as an idea during pharmacy school grew one batch, one market, and one customer at a time.

In July 2023, Mark started selling freeze-dried candy to help raise the money needed to purchase equipment and build the pet-treat business he envisioned.

That fundraising idea eventually helped make the bigger dream possible. (IN Fact you can still see one photo post of his candy on his Instagram as a reminder of how we started at the very beginning as our first post)

While continuing pharmacy school, Mark began developing and producing treats, attending local markets, meeting pet parents, building relationships with Texas suppliers, and growing RGV Freeze-Dried Treats into a licensed and registered pet-treat business.

He built the company while completing one of the most demanding periods of his education taking classes, completing pharmacy training, and working toward his doctorate while continuing to grow the business.

Today, Mark has completed pharmacy school and earned his Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) while the business he started as a student continues to grow.

The pharmacy and pet-treat worlds may seem very different, but the same values have influenced both journeys:

Attention to detail. Transparency. Continual learning. And caring about what goes into the products people trust.

Proudly Texas Sourced

Being a Texas business means more to us than simply putting Texas on our label.

Whenever possible, we want the ingredients inside the bag to have a Texas story too.

We've built relationships with farmers, ranchers, processors, and suppliers across Texas to source ingredients such as Texas-raised beef, rabbit, quail, and Gulf Coast seafood.

Some of our beef, for example, is sourced through Half Calf, a Central Texas family business whose cattle are predominantly raised with family at Weinheimer Ranch in Stonewall, Texas, along with cattle from other local Texas families.

Other ingredients have come from small Texas producers and communities stretching from Central and South Texas all the way to the Gulf Coast.

For us, local sourcing means supporting other Texas businesses while giving our customers greater transparency about where their pets' treats come from.

When you buy from RGV Freeze-Dried Treats, you're not only supporting our small business. In many cases, you're helping us support another Texas farmer, rancher, fisherman, processor, or small business along the way.

More Than Just Muscle Meat

We believe in making use of more of the animal.

That's why our product line goes beyond traditional meat treats and includes a variety of muscle meats, organs, seafood, whole prey, chews, and other nutrient-rich animal ingredients.

Depending on availability, you'll find everything from beef heart, liver, kidney and lung to rabbit, quail, duck, shrimp, mackerel, sardines, mussels and more.

We also embrace ingredients that might look a little different from what you'd normally find on a pet-store shelf.

Whole quail. Rabbit ears and feet. Chicken feet. Mackerel heads. Beef organs. And other naturally recognizable animal ingredients.

This whole-animal approach provides pets with variety while allowing nutritious parts of the animal that are often overlooked to be put to good use.

For us, there's nothing strange about knowing exactly which part of an animal you're feeding.

That's transparency.

From the RGV to San Antonio and Beyond

The name RGV Freeze-Dried Treats is a reminder of where our story began.

Our roots will always be in the Rio Grande Valley, but San Antonio has become the home where our business has grown.

What began as an idea during pharmacy school has turned into products sold at local markets, pet events, and retail locations, with thousands of treats making their way into the paws of dogs and cats across Texas and beyond.

And we're still growing.

Every market, every new store, every new Texas supplier, and every pet parent who comes back because their dog or cat loved our treats becomes another part of our story.

But no matter how much we grow, we don't want to lose sight of why this started:

A college student who loved his pets, wanted to know exactly what he was feeding them, and believed better treats shouldn't have to break the bank.

Made for Our Pets. Shared With Yours.

RGV Freeze-Dried Treats started because Mark wanted something better for Jack and TJ.

That hasn't changed.

As we grow, we continue to approach our products with the same questions that started everything:

Do we know what's in it?

Would we proudly feed it to our own pets?

Can we offer it at a fair price?

If we can't feel good about those answers, it doesn't belong in the bag.

Thank you for supporting a Texas small business, the local producers we work with, and our mission to make simple, transparent, and accessible treats for the animals who mean so much to us.

From our family and our pets to yours, thank you for being part of the RGV Freeze-Dried Treats story. 🐾

— Dr. Mark Gracia, PharmD
Founder, RGV Freeze-Dried Treats