Pet innovation and trends from North America’s largest pet retail event

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📈 A bite-sized stat tastier than kibble: SuperZoo by the numbers

20,000 pet professionals and 1,200+ exhibitors

SuperZoo 2025 brought together over 20,000 pet professionals and 1,200+ exhibitors, but this year's event felt markedly different from previous iterations. The flashy product launches were still there, but the energy centered elsewhere—on operational systems, backend efficiency tools, and products proving their value through data rather than promises.

Conversations shifted from "we're disrupting the category" to "here's our path to profitability at scale." Even the most innovative booths emphasized execution over aspiration, showcasing how they manufacture efficiently, fulfill orders faster, or integrate sustainability without premium pricing.

🐾 The purr-spective: While other pet conferences might focus on novelty, SuperZoo this year was all about execution. Three themes stood out across booths and conversations:

1. Pet nutrition that behaves more like wellness

2. AI and automation shifting pet services toward efficiency

3. Sustainability moving from storytelling to standard

🎾 What we’re chasing: Operational efficiency for product creation

Pet food is turning into pet health

“Human-grade” and “functional” are now table stakes. Fresh and lightly cooked foods dominated, with brands showcasing toppers, broths, and supplements designed around gut health, anxiety, and longevity. The fastest-growing subtrend is meal personalization with brands tailoring recipes by breed, life stage, and activity level. Even treats are medicinal: probiotics, calming bites, and goat-milk-based snacks were everywhere. The category is shifting from indulgence to impact—nutrition as preventive care.

Efficiency is the new innovation

Behind the scenes, operational tech is reshaping the industry faster than any new product. AI-driven booking and inventory tools, ERP systems for independent retailers, and smart fulfillment platforms showed that backend efficiency, not new SKUs, keeps margins healthy. Franchise operators leaned into workflow automation to scale local care models without sacrificing quality. The next big pet-tech breakout won't be consumer-facing—it'll be the invisible infrastructure powering faster, cheaper service delivery.

The sustainability-value paradox

Eco-friendly packaging, upcycled ingredients, and refill systems are no longer differentiators—they're baseline requirements. Retailers now demand certified sustainability claims over vague "green" messaging. 

But here's the tension: Gen Z pet parents treat pets like family while remaining fiercely budget-conscious. They want sustainability without paying premiums for it. This explains why tofu cat litter went mainstream, why refill models are proliferating, and why brands emphasizing value-priced functional products are winning shelf space. Clean labels and traceability have become trust signals, but only when paired with accessible pricing.

🐾 The purr-spective: SuperZoo 2025 revealed a maturing market where operational excellence matters more than flashy products. The industry's next growth wave won't come from inventing new categories. It'll come from making better products more efficiently, at prices that don't force trade-offs between wellness and wallets.

🐕‍🦺 The long leash: From the show floor, where pet care is heading

The pet care industry just showed its hand—here's what's coming

This year's patterns suggest that convenience, sustainability, and technology integration are no longer premium differentiators but baseline expectations. Here are major trends that stood out at SuperZoo:

• Health tech is moving from monitoring to prediction 

• Sustainability is solving the affordability problem 

• Fresh food is scaling fast.

• Functional nutrition hit an inflection point 

• Mental health achieved parity with physical wellness 

We break down the trends, the data behind them, and what they mean for the industry.

Read the full article.

Inside SuperZoo's Emerging Brand Stage—and 5 lessons for founders

Every year, SuperZoo's Emerging Brand Stage reveals where the $140 billion pet care industry is heading, and this year's exhibitors showed a clear pattern. From smart litter boxes that detect kidney disease weeks early to AI-powered bird feeders that improve with every user, a new generation of founders is flipping the traditional "wait for a problem, then fix it" model on its head. 

We broke down five lessons every pet care founder needs to know, from building trust through data to rethinking distribution strategy from day one. Then we spotlighted 18 brands putting these principles into action across three major shifts: proactive care, data-centric products, and convenience integration. 

Read the full article.

Inside the SuperZoo New Product Showcase—a 250+ product directory

SuperZoo’s New Product Showcase is where you see next year’s pet aisle, today. Our directory spans 280+ launches across dogs, cats, aquatics, birds and herptiles—from cooked freeze-dried meals and goat-milk nutrition to AI home monitoring, pheromone-infused litter, and heated adventure gear. It’s a sweeping look at what’s hot now and who’s about to be huge.

Find the directory here.

💸 Clawing in cash: Recent raises in pet tech

Dog Heroes (Milan, Italy): Dog Heroes develops a subscription-based dog food e-commerce platform intended to maintain a healthy dog diet. The company's platform offers customised food options, healthy and natural meals made from Italian meat, balanced with vegetables, cereals, vitamins, and minerals, enabling dogs to have more resistant coats, improved digestion, and a healthy weight. The company raised $5.9M in later stage VC funding from Albemarle Asset Management, CDP Venture Capital (Rome), and VC Partners (Italy).

Elmut (Paris, France): Elmut operates a pet food delivery platform offering healthy animal foods. The company's platform delivers balanced, ready-to-serve personalised meal plans based on a pet's profile including age, breed, size, and activity level, using simple recipes and human-grade ingredients. The company raised $3.5M in later stage VC funding.

Leash (Omaha, NE): Leash provides pet ride services for busy owners. The company allows users to schedule and pay securely for pet transport, with doorstep pick-up, drop-off, and appointment management for grooming, daycare, boarding, or vet visits. The company raised $0.92M in later stage VC funding.

Lupa Pets (London, United Kingdom): Lupa Pets creates an AI-powered pet care platform designed to connect clinics with pet parents. The platform streamlines clinic operations, client engagement, booking, payments, and communications to improve efficiency and care quality. The company raised $20.0M in early stage VC funding from Singular, Firstminute Capital, and Michael Callahan.

OurPetPolicy (Boise, ID): OurPetPolicy has an animal management software for landlords to set clear pet policies and reduce unauthorized or fraudulent animals. The company raised $3.5M in seed funding.

Jiechong Intelligence (Suzhou, China): Jiechong Intelligence creates intelligent pet care devices including AI-powered monitoring systems, smart feeders, and integrated health tracking features for improved convenience and pet well-being. The company raised $1.4M in early stage VC funding.

Modern Animal (Culver City, CA): Modern Animal runs a technology-enabled veterinary clinic offering general and preventive care, diagnostics, surgery, and online pharmacy services. The company raised $46M in later stage VC funding from Upfront Ventures, True Ventures, Addition, and Founders Fund.

Lil Luv Dog (Houston, TX): Lil Luv Dog creates sustainable, oat-based pet care products such as dry shampoos and compostable accessories. The company raised $1M in seed funding from Ani.VC, Halogen Ventures, Twenty Two Ventures, Daniel Rotman, and Steve Ballmer.

Miniiku (Tokyo, Japan): Miniiku is a cloud-based management platform for home-visit veterinary clinics, offering scheduling, electronic records, and billing automation. The company raised an undisclosed amount in later stage VC funding from Chugin Capital Partner and Iwagin Jigyo Souzou Capital.

EquiSeq (Albuquerque, NM): EquiSeq provides equine genetic testing services identifying horses at risk of muscle diseases using non-invasive DNA testing. The company raised an undisclosed amount in later stage VC funding from Ingenuity Venture Fund.

Snout (Los Angeles, CA): Snout is a pet health billing and financial management platform integrating card processing, insurance, loans, and medical record management for veterinary hospitals. The company raised an undisclosed amount in later stage VC funding from 500 Global.

Nest (Portland, ME): Nest creates veterinary management software for custom wellness plan creation, billing automation, and revenue optimisation. The company raised $4.5M in seed funding from Whistler Capital Partners.

Beyondee (Busan, South Korea): Beyondee is a blockchain-based pet data integration platform for clinics, salons, and pet hotels, enabling secure data sharing and identity management across the pet ecosystem. The company raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Series Ventures.

Xinglian Future(Shenzhen, China): Xinglian Future manufactures AI-powered smart pet wearables, combining health tracking and location monitoring for safer, more efficient pet care. The company raised an undisclosed amount in early stage VC funding from 01vc, Kylinhall Partners, and Lingyi Capital.

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