What We Saw At Global Pet Expo

Issue #51

March 26th, 2024

Quick Hits:

🎙️ But where is dad?

🐶 Dog longevity hits another important milestone.

🦴 Are we spoiling our dogs?

❤️ Get the Kleenex! Cherish the time you have with your dog while they're here - all the things you complain about now will be the things you miss when they’re gone.

🇨🇦 Canada’s most popular dog breeds are…

This year’s Global Pet Expo, organized by the American Pet Products Association (APPA) and the Pet Industry Distributors Association (PIDA), brought over 1,100 pet brands to Orlando, Florida.

Now that we are a few days removed from the Global Pet Expo, we can reflect and share what we saw. To see all the interviews we did with the amazing companies that were there - go check out our Instagram, X (Twitter), or LinkedIn accounts.

So after a 6-hour flight delay, we arrived in Florida later than anticipated and therefore missed a mingling event Tuesday evening, however, we were there bright and early Wednesday morning.

Our initial reaction - while there are bigger expos both in size, booths, and attendance, this was absolutely massive in size. Even on the last day as we were heading out we found new vendors in new aisles that we had not yet seen. We ended up walking 26,000 steps between Wednesday & Thursday.

Overall it was a great experience, there were a lot of innovative products and some lackluster ones as well. There were exuberant entrepreneurs who worked extremely hard to attend to every person that came to their booth. There were corporate employees who were mostly there to meet buyers, there were International manufacturing facility representatives, and a lot of doggie and (one bunny) influencers who were walking the grounds and racking up swag. There were passionate pet enthusiasts and folks who were there because they see the opportunities in the sector. There were investors and founders on their 5th or 6th startup and everything in between and we tried in the limited time we had to talk to them all. A lesson we talk about in biz insights (scroll down).

It should come as no surprise that health, wellness, sustainability & functional foods seemed to be at the forefront. Functional foods are defined as ‘foods that contain some health-promoting components beyond traditional nutrients’.

Ashwagandha, collagen treats, wheatgrass, plant-based chews, hemp fibers, biodegradable products, and raw food all had their day in the sun and showed real interest & promise.

However, one trend that we noticed kept popping up in a wide array of products this year was…

Pre & Probiotics!

Pre & Probiotics seemed to be big - from cleaning products to pet treats, pet food, freeze-dried, gels, and pretty much anything else you can think of, it was probiotics infused. As with most things, it is likely a fad, however, we know for a fact that pre/probiotics have immense gut healing benefits, time will tell which of these products have actual validity and benefit and which are a marketing gimmick.

Some of the booths there were not booths at all, at least not in the traditional sense, they were the size of a small home. The big companies - Mars, Hills Pet Nutrition, Purina, Greenies, Eukanuba, and a few others invested a ton of money setting up their mini homes to look as impressive as they did. Supposedly Blue Buffalo spent 1 million smackeroos on their setup (just hearsay, this is not confirmed).

The more we walked the grounds the more intrigued we got about the logistics of running something of this magnitude (perhaps worthy of coverage in a future issue).

There were a lot of different panels and a ton of speakers - some of which we didn’t have time to attend. We did manage to catch this panel which featured some popular Instagram petfluencers and actually packed the room.

After this panel, they had the highly anticipated award show for best new products in multiple categories.

There were 13 categories this year. The winners of the best new products in the Best In Show competition were:

• Aquatic: Anubias On Lava - Pisces USA

• Bird: Happy Beaks Corky Crunchers & Humanized Bird - A&E Cage Company LLC

• Cat: GivePet Cat Treats - GivePet

• Dog food/treats: Dennis Boecker - AllProvide

• Dog products: Happy Dingos Slow Feeder Bowl - Happy Dingos

• Farm & feed: Coop Combo Hemp Fiber Nesting Mats & Bedding - All Walks

• Natural: BetterBones Family Of Tailored Durability Chews - BetterBone

• Pet sustainability: Organic cotton dog beds, blankets, crate covers

  Molly Mutt

• Pet tech innovation: The Uproot Clean 7-in-1 Pet Grooming Kit - Uproot Clean 

• Point of purchase: Cricket Keeper - Spectrum Brands / Global

  Pet Care

• The modern pet: Hoggin’ Dogs, Prime Rib and Pumpkin Flavors -

  Puppy Cake

• Reptile: Exo Terra BioActive Terrarium - Hagen Group

• Small animal: The Roam - With Patented Paw Protection Technology -

  Happy Habitats

VetChip was selected as the grand prize winner of the 2024 Pet Care Innovation Prize, earning $25,000. The biotechnology company is working to improve animal health via technology that monitors, analyzes, and detects pet health issues.

While it was physically impossible to visit every vendor and review every product, we tried to stop at as many booths as possible where we saw cool products. Some of these are brand-new products, some have been around for a while but are not as well known, and some are product line expansions.

Overall, we had a blast and met some very cool people. We are looking forward to seeing you all again at SuperZoo (August 14th-16th) and in future events here in the US and abroad.

PAWS right there!!! Don’t forget to subscribe 👇👇

3 takeaways from the Global Pet Expo

1. Just go - If you are in the industry or have plans to enter the space, going to these events as a young entrepreneur is hugely beneficial. Serendipity aside - meeting people in this space, seeing upcoming trends, and understanding the inner mechanics of the industry will all help you further your endeavor. Networking sometimes has a bad connotation to it, instead, think of it as a relationship-building opportunity.

2. Start with one - The mistake we see many entrepreneurs make is “too much, too fast”. Entrepreneurship is not an exact science, it is figuring out what works first and then expanding. We saw so many companies there that used to be one SKU companies. Now a decade later they have a whole portfolio of products with tens or hundreds of SKU’s BUT they started with one or two things. Find market fit first, understand your customers’ needs, then, expand into a range of products.

3. Make a plan - Many people go to these expos without a specific plan, which is a mistake. What are you looking to get out of it? Contacts? Exposure? Sales? Inspiration? Distribution? Content? What? Don’t go there thinking to yourself “Oh let’s just see what happens” Instead approach it with specific intentions and then follow through on those. The more focused the more you will capitalize on time spent there.

You reached the end, you deserve a treat 🍖

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Finally, what is a dog’s favorite superhero movie?

The Bark Night Rises 

See you Thursday!