FOOD:

RETAIL: New Sales Model Disrupting Pet Food Industry

Petco opens human-grade dog food kitchen in Sports Arena.

For much his life, Yummy, a yellow Lab with bright brown eyes and a winsome “smile,” was overweight and not in the best of health.

About four years ago, his pet parent, Ron Coughlin, tried feeding him special weight reduction kibble, but Coughlin said the pounds didn’t come off. Worried that Yummy’s quality of life and lifespan could suffer with the additional pounds, Coughlin switched his nearly 10-year-old dog to a fish and sweet potato diet made by Orange County-based JustFoodForDogs.

“Immediately, Yummy lost 10 pounds and was vigorous like a young dog,” Coughlin said. “His bloodwork came back, looking like a 2-year-old’s.”

Since then, Coughlin, who is not just Yummy’s dad, but also chairman and CEO of Petco (NASDAQ: WOOF), has been convinced JustFoodForDogs’ products are top tier. So much is Coughlin a believer in JustFoodForDogs that his company just opened its second full in-store kitchen at Petco’s Sports Arena area store.

“We love what they are doing,” Coughlin said. “We decided we wanted to work together because we’re both dedicated to health and wellness.” Now at the Sports Arena kitchen inside Petco, just as they do at the Union Square Petco in New York City, which opened in 2019, JustFoodForDogs’ trained chefs create human-grade pet food prepared daily from a veterinarian-designed menu.

Open Kitchens

JustFoodForDogs was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Irvine. The company is serious about transparency and scientific research and publishes its recipes and studies. Their open kitchens allow for full visibility into the food-making process.

The company has a nutrition research advisory board with 13 veterinarians who help steer the selection and direction of research funded by the company to inform and guide the future of pet nutrition.

Coughlin and Yummy, looking spry at 13½, were joined at the official opening in mid-June at the Sports Arena site by Petco personnel, JustFoodForDogs CEO Julian Mack and his two rescued special-needs dogs.

JustFoodForDogs’s beginnings go back to when founder Shawn Buckley was searching for a healthy dog food for his dog, Simon. “When Simon got sick, Shawn realized that everything he did mattered, and to get as much time with him as possible, so he started looking into how commercial dog food is made and marketed and what’s in it,” said Mack, who has been the JustFoodForDogs CEO for about a year but has sat on its board for nine years. During his investigation, Buckley found out what items are legally allowed to be in dog food. He was shocked and upset to see that misleading labels were the norm, ingredients were not well sourced or regulated – and a plethora of dangerous preservatives littered the kibble and cans of dog food. “It’s really ugly,” Mack said. “He found out all the non-food ingredients, the toxins, the heavy metals. It was horrible. He got outraged about how we feed our best friends.” JustFoodForDogs has had a standalone kitchen in Del Mar since 2017, but Mack said the partnership with Petco means more people are exposed to the brand.

Industry Disrupter

“We are in the works of disrupting the pet food industry,” said Dr. Jessica Wilson, a veterinarian with JustFoodForDogs. “Our Petco partnership started at the end of 2017, beginning of 2018, and with it, another avenue opened to make it more easily accessible.” Wilson said Petco understands the JustFoodForDogs model, its “concept of utilizing real food and all the nutrients, formulating it properly in order to provide health benefits or improve the quality of life of pets all over.”

She said another unique feature of JustFoodForDogs is in the way it sources its ingredients, using only those that are suitable for human consumption. “We know that human supply chain is more aggressively inspected and there is less likelihood of something going wrong,” Wilson said.

Petco offers fresh nutrition stations in more than 700 of its locations nationwide, also offering with it, expert nutrition consultants who are able to guide pet parents on finding the right food for their companion animals.

By the end of this year, JustFoodForDogs is expected to be available in more than 1,000 Petco pet care centers.

Petco officials said that doing so reinforces the company’s commitment to ingredient transparency and high-quality pet nutrition. Petco made a public promise in 2018 to no longer sell food and treats containing artificial colors, flavors and preservatives for dogs and cats.

According to the American Pet Products Association, Americans spent $123 billion in the pet industry in 2021, including $50 billion in pet food and treats.

‘Humanization'

Coughlin said younger people adopting pets are moving toward “humanization,” a far different lifestyle for companion animals than ever before.

“More and more pets are being adopted by Gen-Zers and millennials,” Coughlin said. “Gen Z and millennials are really pushing humanization. Pets used to be in the wild. Then they were in the backyard like my grandfather’s dog. Then they’re in the beds from my generation.

“Now millennials and Gen-Z’ers are taking it to the next level and giving them basically the same food they’re eating.” ■