Specialty pet retailer Pet Valu is marking its 50th anniversary this year and in honour of this milestone, the brand is celebrating the memories, connections and joy it has shared with pets and devoted pet lovers since its first store opened in 1976.
“Pet Valu has had the privilege of being part of so many memorable moments over the past 50 years” said Greg Ramier, CEO at Pet Valu. “As we mark this milestone anniversary, we are bringing our 50-year story to life by celebrating the love, care and connections we have shared with so many Canadians and their pets.
“For half a century, Canadian pet parents have turned to Pet Valu for convenience, compassion, quality, value and expertise. Whether they drop into one of our stores to ask a question, do their weekly shop or simply say hello to one of our Animal Care Experts, we have shared so many meaningful moments together. Through our anniversary celebrations we want to thank everyone who has been part of our journey for their trust and support.”
Ramier said the brand recently opened its 870th store in Canada.
“We have a team that’s very focused on growing our network at approximately 40 stores a year, and we’ve done that since 2019. That’s an important element of our growth plan, expanding our reach. Typical size will depend on how urban or rural it is. We would range from 2,500 to 5,000 square feet. Most of the stores are in the 3,500 to 4,000 square foot range,” he said.
“What we found is customers, pet lovers in Canada, care about three things. They want to make sure they get the right quality and expertise around the products that they feed their pets. They want value, and they want a convenient way to shop.
“So really, a key growth focus for us is to continue to improve convenience. We’re really lucky to be a neighbourhood pet store that’s primarily franchise-run, with great connections to the community. Easy to shop, great assortment, great expertise, but still have all the scale to be able to do that at good value for our customers and to have all the right brands.”
Ramier said pet ownership remains strong.
“What we’ve found historically is that pet ownership, or the number of pets, increases as the Canadian population and households increase. That household growth in Canada has slowed over the last year or so, but we’re still seeing very strong pet ownership,” he explained.
“We’re also seeing lots of demand for healthy, nutritious, natural food for pets. We would talk about that as the humanization or premiumization of the pet as part of your family. That has been a growing trend for the last 15 or 20 years.
“We are seeing product segments of ours like culinary, which is what we call it, but it’s really at the top end of nutrition, where it’s either frozen raw food, freeze-dried, or gently cooked, that’s one of our fastest-growing categories. It’s one of the fastest-growing categories in the pet industry in Canada.
“At the same time, value really matters, especially now. So we are seeing our proprietary brand product, on the food side Performatrin, we’re seeing really nice growth in it because it’s equivalent quality to a national brand and better pricing. We’re seeing customers definitely lean into that harder in the current environment.”
Ramier said he’s been with Pet Valu for two years.
“I’d say the keys to success for us are the fact that we have customers, devoted pet lovers, who have shopped with us for multiple generations. We are the place that they trust and that they enjoy shopping with,” he noted.
“We also have franchisees who are long-standing. Over 70% of our stores are franchised. A lot of those franchisees are long-tenured; many of them are multi-generational. In this sort of business, where you’re running a neighbourhood pet store, the quality of the experience and the trust and expertise that you can build for customers in a store really matters.
“Those are probably the two biggest things we’ve done. All the other things underneath it that you’d expect with a retail company at scale. We’ve just invested over a hundred million dollars in our supply chain to make sure that we have a world-class supply chain that can grow now for the next decade plus.
“We have a full omnichannel or e-commerce offer, as you’d expect, to make sure that customers don’t only love bricks and mortar, they want to be able to choose how they shop, when they shop. So that’s been a big investment for us.
“We’ve done a lot with our loyalty program. We have over three million active members. Those are all things that have helped propel us. The core of it, though, is having really great in-store expertise and franchisees who care about people, their pets, and their pets’ nutrition.”
For the future, Ramier said the company will look at opening another 40 stores or so to expand its reach in the near future. It’s also just finished its supply chain transformation.
“What our customers should expect from that is we now have distribution centres with more capacity, so we’re expanding our assortment and our offering as part of that,” he said.
“We’re very focused right now around winning the monthly shopper. Think of that as when you are choosing where to buy your pet food this month, convenience matters, quality matters, and so does value.
“We have a pretty exciting program this year around promotional offers and really good everyday pricing, especially with our proprietary brands. That’s a big focus for us this year, as is continuing to get even more out of our loyalty program.
“It is a well-loved and well-used program. We have three million active customers. Ninety per cent of the time, a customer coming into our store uses our loyalty program. So being able to give them even more value as part of that will be important for us this year.”
Ramier said the great thing about the company’s business model is that it can be successful in downtown Toronto or in a small community.
“The ability for our model to service devoted pet lovers in any community and still do that in a really healthy and profitable way is important for us. So you’ll see us expand in more rural locations than we typically have across the country this year,” he said.
“It’s 50 years of us serving devoted pet lovers and their pets, first store in Toronto. We’re really proud to be Canada’s largest neighbourhood pet specialty retailer, and to have the scale we have, and to be able to do that and have this many Canadians come to love and trust us. I’m really honoured to be the CEO there, and happy to be part of the next decade of the journey with them.”
From April 2 to 29 devoted pet lovers are invited to enter Pet Valu’s 50th Anniversary Contest on Instagram and Facebook for a chance to win one of five $500 gift cards. To enter, participants must share a special milestone or meaningful moment they celebrated with their pets such as a birthday, adoption day, learning a new trick, or mastering a puzzle. Participants are also encouraged to tag and give a shoutout to their local store to share about their memorable in-store experiences. Winners will be selected by random draw and announced on May 11.
To show its appreciation for the support provided by devoted pet lovers over the last five decades, Pet Valu will be offering a variety of 50th Anniversary surprises and promotions throughout the year. In May and June, Pet Valu stores across Canada will create custom 50th Anniversary VIP boxes to surprise a selection of their devoted pet lovers. Each VIP box will be curated for the devoted pet lover and their pet by their local store.
From April through December, Pet Valu will shine a spotlight on several great pet product national brands that have a shared legacy of serving Canadian devoted pet lovers. Special anniversary promotions will be announced with each spotlight.
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