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Whitebridge Pet Brands
NATURAL PET FOOD AND TREATS MANUFACTURER

The Story Behind the Consolidation of Whitebridge Pet Brands

  • Consumer
  • 2014
  • Realized

Whitebridge Pet Brands was founded in January 2015. A classic CEO1ST buy-and-build, the company was founded and led in partnership by Olivier Amice, CEO, to capitalize on the favorable macro trends in the pet industry. The vision was to bring health and happiness to pets through better nutrition, specifically natural and minimally processed foods, complements, treats, and supplements formulated to specific needs of dogs and cats.

Over the next seven years the company completed five acquisitions. It all started with the acquisition and merger of Cloud Star, a leading pet treat manufacturer and Petropics, maker of Tiki Cat® and Tiki Dog® pet foods. In April 2017, Whitebridge Pet Brands acquired Dogswell®, a leading brand of functional jerkies for dogs. In January 2020, the company acquired Cardinal Pet Care, maker of Pet Botanics® and Crazy Dog® training treats, and in March 2021, Whitebridge Pet Brands completed the acquisition of Grizzly Pet Products, a leader in pet supplements.

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The Whitebridge acquisition strategy focused on brands with a competitive advantage in their respective category, that were complementary to the existing brand portfolio, or operations, and that are well-aligned with the company’s mission and strategy. Pet food and treats are sold predominantly in the pet specialty channel as well as online.

The company established headquarters in St. Louis, MO.  Frontenac invested in the people, products, systems, and capabilities necessary to scale the organization which enabled the company to achieve exceptional organic growth driven by new product development, introduction to online selling, channel optimization and subsequent distribution gains.

Strategic M&A
Executed on a successful acquisition and consolidation strategy, both enhancing product offering in existing markets and expanding geographically while expanding margins
Expanded Manufacturing Capabilities
Shifted manufacturing capabilities to high quality, scalable, in-house and external networks of facilities
New Product Development
In addition to new acquisition partners contributing to the existing brand portfolio and operations, the company expanded broad range product offerings into additional end-markets and distribution sources

“Frontenac provides more than just capital. Their group has taken the time to become extremely knowledgeable about our industry and they also have expertise and many contacts in adjacent industries. This has allowed the Frontenac team to become quickly respected and valuable partners to our management team.”

– Olivier Amice, Chief Executive Officer of Whitebridge Pet Brands

Disclaimer: The case studies described herein are for illustrative and discussion purposes only and have been selected to provide, among other things, examples of deal sourcing and investment strategy. A full list of investments is available from Frontenac upon request. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. It should not be assumed that investments made in the future will be comparable in quality or performance to the investments described herein.