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Mars Petcare to Purchase Orijen and Acana

How much can Mars Petcare own in the pet industry?

The largest manufacturer of pet food in the world just got a bit larger. Mars Petcare announced in a press release today (11/1/22) “that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Champion Petfoods.”

According to Statista.com, the top three feed grade pet food manufacturers based on revenue in 2021 was:

  1. Mars Petcare with $19 billion in revenue.
  2. Nestle Purina Petcare with $16.5 billion in revenue.
  3. Hill’s Pet Nutrition with only $3.3 billion in revenue.

With revenue so close between Mars and Purina, did they purchase Champion only to pull further in front of Purina?

But how much more can Mars buy in the pet industry?

From the Mars website, these are existing pet related businesses owned by Mars:

Veterinary and Diagnostic Services
Mars Veterinary Health
AniCura
Antech
Asia Veterinary Diagnostics
Banfield Pet Hospitals
Blue Pearl Vet Hospitals
Linnaeus
Mount Pleasant Veterinary Group
VCA Animal Hospitals
Veterinary Emergency & Specialty Hospitals
Veterinary Specialty Hospitals

Pet Nutrition and Therapeutic Health Services
API
Aquarian
Buckeye Nutrition
Catsan
Cesar
Chappie
Crave
Dreamiees
Eukanuba
Greenies
Iams
James Wellbeloved
Kitekat
Lovebug!
Misfits
My Cat DNA
My Dog DNA
Natusan
Nutro
Peawee
Pedigree
Perfect Fit
Royal Canin
Sheba
Spillers
Temptations
Thomas
Whiskas
Winergy

Technology for Pets
Companion Fund
FluffyGo
Kinship
Leap
Pet Insight Project
Vet Insight
Waltham
Whistle
Wisdom Panel

When will Mars own too much of the pet industry? When does it become a monopoly?

Wishing you and your pet the best –

Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
TruthaboutPetFood.com
Association for Truth in Pet Food


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21 Comments

21 Comments

  1. jan

    November 1, 2022 at 10:35 pm

    God help us! That is terrifying. I’d call that a monopoly. Same w/ Nestle. No wonder our beloved fur-babies are developing diseases like cancer. I want to weep.

    • Kirsten Zielinski

      November 2, 2022 at 10:04 pm

      feed your own prepared raw diet. you will know exactly what is in it because you made it yourself.

      • JJ

        November 4, 2022 at 9:05 pm

        Considering all the class action lawsuits they have had in the past few years. Can’t say I blame them for selling while they still have something to sell.

  2. Martin St John

    November 1, 2022 at 10:37 pm

    Susan,the real question is, how will it effect the quality and ingredients? This is especially important to our family since we feed both Orijen and Acana. Is this a heads-up that, perhaps, we should be looking elsewhere?

    • Jo-Anne

      November 2, 2022 at 11:15 am

      Martin, Sounds like a heads-up to me!

  3. Nicole

    November 1, 2022 at 10:41 pm

    This is unfortunate. I recommended this food to my clients that wanted kibble. I’m sure the quality will go down now that mars bought it.

  4. Robin

    November 1, 2022 at 10:56 pm

    “When does it become a monopoly?”…It IS a monopoly!! Between controlling the food and the vets, it’s becoming terrifying to ask
    a vet a nutrition question. Their income is so tied to telling clients to feed the products now owned by the monopolies. It’s really kind of sad about Orijen and Acana. I used to buy it occasionally back in 2007-2008 because it was actually imported from Canada and I thought ( mistakenly) it was safer from the Melamine poisonings. I quit buying it when the recipes changed and the price went to the moon. It’s like $5-9 a pound now….

    • Claire

      November 3, 2022 at 9:52 pm

      The industry is not in a monopoly situation; not unless the top two, possibly three merge. But the current system is an oligopoly and personally I could care less. I don’t buy food or treats, I feed my animals as I feed myself and family: from things I make/prepare in my own kitchen. I recommend all pet owners do the same. I made the switch 16 years ago and never looked back. I only wish I made the switch sooner.

  5. Margretchen Fuesler

    November 1, 2022 at 11:07 pm

    It already is a monopoly and it’s so sad. I do my research. Sadly a lot don’t.

  6. General Nuisance

    November 2, 2022 at 12:18 am

    Come, come. Do any of the agencies overseeing the pet food industry really care about monopolies? Mars, Purina, and Hills aren’t like Standard Oil. Eventually owning a pet or companion animal will become so expensive that these few remaining companies will price themselves out of the market. At least one can hope so.

    • Dana Michelle mesick

      November 2, 2022 at 10:25 pm

      Not happened to oil and gas companies…….

  7. Tag Geren

    November 2, 2022 at 1:38 am

    Just more reasons for my pets to eat what i eat which is homegrown and grassfed FOOD! Fresh and all summer garden and coop to table. As with human nutrition it doesn’t come as boxed, bagged and canned it comes from WHOLE FRESH FOOD. My pets eat healthier than 90% of humans do. SAD!

  8. John

    November 2, 2022 at 10:54 am

    I recommend Stella & Chewys frozen 8 oz Pattie’s in the value size 12 lb bags! Any of the proteins! If not that, then primal frozen Pattie’s.

  9. Tony

    November 2, 2022 at 4:30 pm

    Mars owns VCA pet hospitals, and they are acquiring all the independently run facilities. Mars has now decided on a pricing for vet clinics and pet care. The common pet owner cannot afford such prices in any way.
    I was at a VCA pet hospitals, there was a sign with a photo of a dog and the words “adopt a pet”. I questioned the vet about how an elderly person can adopt a pet and pay your disgraceful fees, corporate GREED. I’ve inquired twice, but I haven’t gotten a response yet, their even too ashamed to respond.
    The prices are now double what they were before VCA entered the market.

    • Kirsten Zielinski

      November 2, 2022 at 10:08 pm

      totally true but you can not blame the vets that work there. they are employees and have no say in the pricing. perhaps we all need to forward this website to our congressional people/etc…

    • Concerned

      November 3, 2022 at 11:34 am

      remember to include the 24/7 ER hospitals. In the Madison, Milwaukee and Chicago triangle all but (3) are now corporate owned in the past 12 months. (2) are private and (1) is the UW-Madison are all that is left. Mars was forced to sell one of the ER hospitals by the FDA because they controlled so many in just one area but sold it to another corporation.

  10. C. Farquhar

    November 2, 2022 at 4:45 pm

    Well time to find a new Canadian Pet food, Quality and product control about to go down. Too bad I trusted these two brands after Two of My Dogs almost Died From The Melamine recall several years ago, I have never bought anything not Made in Canada that I Trust after that

  11. Peter

    November 4, 2022 at 1:24 pm

    One of my cats is on Orijen Fit & Trim. The buyout by Mars is concerning and I will be switching to something else.
    I wanted a Canadian brand, but I also hear a lot of interesting things about Farmina (Italian) and might give this one a go.
    If the little prince likes the taste of it, obviously 😀

  12. Paul Raven

    November 16, 2022 at 8:23 am

    Time to go homemade, dehydrated or raw.

  13. Rhonda

    April 11, 2023 at 11:49 pm

    it just made me sick to look at the mars website, they had the nerve to boast about their efforts to understand the causes of pet homelessness.

    gee could it be the outrageously priced food, or the 300 bucks minimum it now costs to get your pet fixed.

    many people have to choose between paying their bills or taking their pet to the vet if it needs urgent care because of the insane amount customers are charged for simple procedures.

    MARS YOU ARE THE CAUSE OF MUCH OF THE SUFFERING THAT HOMELESS PETS MUST ENDURE BECAUSE OF YOUR GREED! HAVE YOU NO SHAME!

  14. Rick

    November 29, 2023 at 5:59 pm

    This is classic anti-competitive and predatory behavior, that was in the original spirit of the Sherman Antitrust Act’s intention to prevent. An act that was gutted 40 years ago during the Reagan presidency, under the advisement of Robert Bork and the Chicago School of Economics mythology that a monopoly is only a problem if it’s “injurious to consumers” e.g. higher prices, and that indeed is what Senator Sherman was really all about many years ago, which was a blatant lie. This myth also made believe that competitors would fill the market, if monopolists behaved poorly, and consumers would “vote with their wallets”, no problem. It was unfounded abstract BS then and is not based on real outcomes now, as a relative few corporations consolidate entire industries with vertical or horizontal integration. This is happening in seemingly all industries… big tech, in particular… also big ag, big food, banking, finance, etc. The bad news is that the Bork doctrine is basically a secular religion now and approximately 40% of the Federal judiciary is “educated” along this narrow view of antitrust, as they’ve been to Chicago School boot camps in Florida for decades. The good news is that Chair Lina Khan at the FTC is very much about tossing out this doctrine and returning antitrust and anti-competitive enforcement to the original spirit and intent of the Sherman Antitrust Act. She is particularly interested in Big Tech, but this seems very much in her wheelhouse, too. She wrote a groundbreaking legal paper in The Yale Law Journal titled, “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox”, available free in PDX format. You can notify the FTC about this at antitrust@ftc.gov

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