SUPERZOO Takeaways: Freeze-Dried Food and Treats
Freeze-dried food and treats drew strong attention at SUPERZOO as brands emphasized ingredient transparency, food safety and novel proteins.
“SUPERZOO is one of my favorite weeks of the year,” said Vital Essentials CEO Heather Govea. “It’s where we get to be face to face with the retailers and partners who are out there doing the hard work of getting raw into more bowls. What made this year stand out was introducing the Vital Essentials Promise, which is really just us saying out loud what we’ve always believed: pets deserve the safest, best nutrition we can make, and pet parents deserve to know exactly how we deliver it.”
“The moment I keep coming back to is our new Safety Advisory Council right there at the booth,” Govea continued. “People could walk up and ask the tough technical questions about food safety and nutrition, and get answers straight from the experts who set our standards. Those aren’t always easy conversations, but they’re the ones I care most about having, and watching how much they resonated reminded our whole team why we do this.”
“SUPERZOO was a great experience for us,” said Ashton Hood, Shepherd Boy Farms Founder. “We always enjoy the opportunity to get out from behind the emails and phone calls and spend time face-to-face with our retail partners. Those relationships are a huge part of Shepherd Boy Farms, so getting to reconnect with longtime partners, meet new retailers and hear directly from the people who are interacting with pet parents every day is probably the most valuable part of the show for our team.”
“The moment that mattered most to us had nothing to do with a sale,” stated Apu Mody, CEO of Golden Pet Brands. “Badlands Ranch donated more than 650,000 pounds of Superfood Complete to Furgotten Friends Dog Rescue and Paw Partners Unleashed, the official charity partners of SUPERZOO. More than 61,000 bags, on more than 23 truckloads, to rescue partners across Southern Nevada. Badlands Ranch was built on a simple belief. Every dog deserves clean, healthy food. Food that is both healthy and good should be accessible to all dogs, and that includes the ones still waiting for a home. I am grateful to our team for making a donation of that size happen, and to Manda and Furgotten Friends Dog Rescue for getting every bag where it needed to go.”
“Honestly, I want people to leave our booth knowing how seriously we take the job of feeding someone’s pet. That’s a lot of trust to earn, and we don’t take it lightly,” Govea said. “That’s what the Vital Essentials Promise is all about. It comes down to four things: traceable ingredients from suppliers we audit closely, a process we’re proud to show off and back with third-party certifications, safety standards that lead the category, and a team that’s been doing this for decades. And the questions we heard most were the ones I love getting: how is freeze-dried raw actually made, and how do you keep it safe? That’s exactly why we put our Safety Advisory Council at the booth. The more people understand what’s happening behind the bag, the more confident they feel about what’s in the bowl.”
“We wanted people to walk away from our booth understanding what makes Shepherd Boy Farms different—particularly our focus on unique, high-quality proteins, clean ingredients and controlling our manufacturing process ourselves,” Hood said. “This year, we launched our new Kangaroo protein, and it definitely created a lot of excitement and conversation. Retailers are always looking for something new that gives their customers a reason to come back into the store, and kangaroo really stood out as a unique option, especially for consumers looking for novel proteins.”
“We are now Golden Pet Brands, and our portfolio has evolved considerably,” commented VP of Retail, Dan Markenson. “Dr. Marty Pets established our presence in neighborhood pet stores, and today we offer a portfolio designed to address different customer preferences and price points. 360 Pet Nutrition provides an entry point for consumers seeking premium nutrition. Badlands Ranch is in the growing air-dried and dehydrated segment, and Ultimate Pet Nutrition continues to expand its retail presence with Pet Supplies Plus. It’s been wonderful to see how supported our brands have been from Neighborhood Pet.”
Ingredient and manufacturing transparency was one of the key trends that the Vital Essentials team noticed during SUPERZOO. “Without question,” Govea said. “Pet parents aren’t just asking what’s in the food anymore. They want to know where it came from, how it was made, and what a brand is really doing about safety. That’s a good thing for freeze-dried raw. The category is growing fast, and that growth comes with a responsibility to make raw easier to understand, not more intimidating. For the rest of the year, I think you’ll see a lot more education, not just about what’s in the bag, but about everything that happens before it ever gets there.”
Shepherd Boy leaders noted that freeze-dried products continue to perform incredibly well, with no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
Hood said, “Consumers are becoming more educated about what they’re feeding their pets, and they’re looking for products with recognizable ingredients, better sourcing and less processing. Freeze-dried fits naturally into that movement. I think we’ll continue to see the category grow, but as it becomes more competitive, brands are going to have to differentiate themselves through ingredient quality, sourcing transparency, innovation and consistency—not simply by having a freeze-dried product.”
“We believe education remains important in the freeze-dried and air-dried pet nutrition categories in order to drive continued consumer and retailer interest in these categories and will do our part in making consumers aware of the benefits of our brands through TV and other general awareness campaigns,” Markenson reflected.
“The questions we got were more technical than in past years,” Mody observed. “Pet parents used to ask which brand was good. Now they ask how the food is made, and they use the terms. Freeze-dried and air-dried are not the same, and shoppers are learning the difference. One retailer asked me to explain high pressure processing, a question I was not getting three years ago. Our job is to keep explaining it, on the package and in our advertising. A category built on how the food is made only works when the pet parent understands the how.”
“Going in, our main goal was to introduce the Vital Essentials Promise and start a more honest conversation about safety and transparency,” Govea said. “It landed even better than we hoped. We got to walk retailers through the whole picture, from how we source ingredients to our certifications and safety protocols, with our Safety Advisory Council right there to answer the technical stuff. People left with a real understanding of the care behind every product, and that’s exactly what we came to do.”
“For us, SUPERZOO has never been only about how many orders we can write during the show,” Hood said. “Our biggest goal is to connect, and reconnect, with the people doing the hard work every day at the retail level. Independent retailers have played a huge role in building Shepherd Boy Farms, and we want them to know that we’re here to support them. Being able to have those conversations, listen to what they’re seeing in their stores and strengthen those relationships made the show a success for us.”
Vital Essentials believes that education should be the focal point for retailers when it comes to freeze-dried food and treats.
“There’s so much excitement around freeze-dried raw, but there are just as many questions, especially from pet parents trying it for the first time,” Govea said.
She added, “Retailers are the ones having that first conversation, so they’re in a powerful spot. Knowing what’s in the food matters, but so does understanding where it came from, how it’s made, and what safety steps are behind it. The more openly we can all talk about that, the more trust we build, and the easier we make it for someone to give raw a try.”
As freeze-dried continues to grow, brands at SUPERZOO showed how transparency, quality and innovation can help build trust and keep the category moving forward.
Meanwhile, Shepherd Boy Farms emphasizes that retailers should prioritize sourcing transparency, ingredient integrity and product availability.
Hood said, “Consumers increasingly want to know where ingredients come from and understand exactly what is in the products they’re buying. At the same time, retailers can’t sell products that aren’t on the shelf. Stockouts and inconsistent supply have become a real frustration in the category.”
He continued, “One of the advantages Shepherd Boy Farms has is that we manufacture our products ourselves. We aren’t relying on a third-party manufacturer to determine when or how much product we can produce. That vertical integration gives us significantly more control over our quality, sourcing and inventory, and it allows us to be a more dependable partner for retailers.”
