Global Pet Expo Takeaways: Premium Foods

The premium food space has a wide range of manufacturers that are dedicated and committed to ensuring pets thrive throughout their lives with the help of nutritious food. This year’s Global Pet Expo was a gathering place for these manufacturers to showcase and exhibit their product offerings while educating attendees on the benefits of premium food solutions.

“Nulo’s dry dog assortment represents the greatest volume opportunities for our retailers, so we focused on new recipes and packaging improvements to our core FreeStyle kibble portfolio, our Ancient Grain value kibble line Frontrunner and our highly differentiated Cold Pressed line,” said Head of Retail and Product Marketing, Eric Emmenegger. “Retailers were enthusiastic to bring in the new FreeStyle recipes—Small Breed Beef and Limited+ Lamb. We know that pet ownership of smaller breeds continues to accelerate and now represents more than 46 percent of the dog household marketplace. Further pet parents also continue to resonate to the value proposition of LID (Limited Ingredient Diet) products that answer the needs of dogs with dietary sensitivities. We’re confident these innovations will help build on the business momentum we’ve established across our dry kibble portfolio, while Frontrunner and Cold Pressed will appeal to a broad range of consumers looking for premium nutrition.”

“Global was a great opportunity to continue the momentum of our Now Fresh Good Gravy launch,” said Victoria Byrne—Field Marketing Specialist, Petcurean and Jocelyn Lambie—Junior Nutritionist, Petcurean. “This unique recipe features a bone broth coated kibble that can be served dry or mixed with water for a hydrating bone broth gravy—retailers and influencers alike really enjoyed the live product demos at the Petcurean booth! We were also really excited to soft launch a variety of upcoming Now Fresh innovations and can’t wait to share more details ahead of the summer 2025 official launch.”

“This year’s Global was a tremendous success for Open Farm,” said Chief Sales Officer Amy Horton. “Despite reports of lower overall attendance, our booth remained consistently busy from start to finish. We had an incredible turnout from both existing and new neighborhood pet retail partners, engaged in meaningful discussions with distributors and successfully introduced our latest innovations. Our primary goals were to strengthen relationships, showcase our newest offerings and expand our reach in the premium pet food space—and we delivered on all fronts. The feedback on our new innovations was overwhelmingly positive, reaffirming that we’re meeting the unmet needs of pet parents and creating solutions that not only make a difference for pets but also have a positive impact on the environment. The enthusiasm around Open Farm’s commitment to nutrition, animal welfare, sustainability and transparency further underscored the growing demand for purpose-driven pet food solutions.”

“Our showing at Global exceeded my expectations,” said Heather Govea, CEO of Carnivore Meat Company, parent company of Vital Essentials. “The booth was a year in the making, a true physical representation of our updated strategy. We hit our marks with the 20 percent raw feeding message and got great feedback on our new line of Soft Nibs for dogs and cats. I loved watching folks at our interactive Butcher table creating their own partial raw food bowls – it really showed pet parents how simple and inclusive raw feeding can be, which was exactly what we wanted. The new product formats and proteins we introduced are opening doors to reach more pets and their parents, which was a key goal. Overall, we came with a clear plan, rooted in strategy and consumer insights and then executed it well. I’m genuinely pleased with what we accomplished at the expo—now it’s about translating that into more doors and facings.”

Exhibitors were able to gain a better understanding of what pet owners are gravitating toward and what trends are circulating throughout the industry. “Retailers are responsive to their consumers’ evolving patterns. In many situations, dog parents are re-evaluating their value equation. Some are trading down to more affordable, yet highly nutritious kibble like Frontrunner. Other consumers are looking for the minimally processed, highest quality alternative forms such as Cold Pressed. New products were showcased to address those opposing consumer segments,” said Emmenegger with Nulo. 

“Global certainly has a direct impact on our business goals. The face-to-face connections with our key distributor partners and retailers are invaluable—you just can’t replace that personal interaction. It gives us the perfect platform to showcase our new innovations and really tell the Vital Essentials story in a compelling way. When people can see and touch our products, they get it instantly. With raw feeding and premium pet nutrition gaining so much traction right now, our presence at Global helps us build on that momentum. We’re expanding awareness and connecting with a much wider audience than we could through other channels. I’d say this event is a crucial piece of our growth strategy—the relationships we strengthen and the new ones we build here translate directly to our bottom line,” said Govea.