Fresh pet food gains momentum as GM and Freshpet grow market footprint

In October, General Mills (GM) launched Blue Buffalo’s first fresh food brand, Love Made Fresh, in the US. While it’s still too early to gauge consumer acceptance, company CEO Jeff Harmening told the J.P. Morgan U.S. Opportunities Forum that the response has been positive: “Consumers are telling us they really love the idea,” he says.

At the same conference, another player, Freshpet, discussed the topic. The pet food manufacturer celebrated becoming cash flow positive last quarter but acknowledged pressure from slowing consumer demand and outlined strategies to remain competitive.

‘So far, so good’

According to General Mills’ CEO, during a test done a couple of years ago, they realized that generating awareness of fresh food would “be more daunting” than they had thought. Now, this finding has led to heavy investment in growing the product’s presence and visibility. 

“It’s too early to declare victory by a lot. So far, so good. We’ve executed really well,” explains Harmening. 

To date, Love Made Fresh is available in 4,531 stores across the US, reaching 90% of General Mills’ initial three-month rollout plan. The brand offers 12 SKUs, some in traditional tube format and others in resealable tubes – a new format for the segment.

Harmening states that the beginning of 2026 will focus on the execution phase, with plans to expand the brand’s store presence. The company intends to invest in innovation, technology and brand building without increasing capital expenditures.

Blue Buffalo is stable, but needs to grow

Blue Buffalo is the biggest pet brand in GM’s portfolio, and the company has plans for it: “We have stabilized the business. That is not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is to get back to really strong growth,” the CEO says.

According to Harmening, the Life Protection Formula and the cat food brand Tasteful, both under the Blue umbrella, are growing. But the dog food and treat brand, Wilderness, has been their biggest challenge. To tackle that, the company has adjusted treat prices and is seeing a net rebound in volume. 

The CEO also celebrated the performance of Tiki Cat, which joined the portfolio during the acquisition of Whitebridge, and has been growing well. He attributes it to the growth in the cat population, but notes that brand awareness is still low.

Freshpet and the competition challenge

After years of investment totaling $1.3 billion (€1.1B) since 2017, Freshpet is finally free cash flow positive, CEO Billy Cyr said at the J.P. Morgan event. 

“We’re now at the point where all that spending and organizational capability we’ve put in place is generating the benefits we expected,” he says.

According to Cyr, “consumers’ willingness to trade up their pet food” remains a growth driver, but that rate “stalled” this year. 

“We don’t think that it’s going to stop. We think that the reality is the consumers will, when they feel confident, they feel economically secure, they will return to the same behaviors that they had before, and we’ll see this move up.”

Competitiveness and loyalty 

Cyr recognized the increasing competitiveness in the fresh food industry, but said that it “validates” the market. 

“We’re also grateful to them for the amount of money that they’re going to spend to create awareness and visibility of the category, and that’ll only help us. I think it would be naive to think that we just woke up and realized we’re going to get competition at some point,” he stated. 

One of the company’s strategies was to build a highly loyal consumer base that does not buy based on price. Another advantage, according to the CEO, is the time they invested in the sector ahead of new entrants.

“The technology that we’ve invested in and that we’re developing puts us in a position where by the time people finally race to get into the category, we’re on to the next generation, whether that’s fridges in store, because the fridges we put in today are dramatically better than the ones we did before, or the manufacturing technology,” Cyr explained. 

Retail plans

Freshpet wants to increase its e-commerce penetration but recognizes the natural challenges fresh food can pose in terms of stock and delivery. They bet on partnerships to increase it.

“We’re really excited by what Amazon and Walmart Plus are doing to create same-day grocery delivery. In essence, if you want all the things that you can get from a D2C offering, excluding the personalization, you might be able to get that from Walmart Plus or from Amazon,” he said.

The producer also praised the presence in brick-and-mortar and mass retailers, especially with Freshpet fridges’ islands in 17 Walmart stores, in the dispute for market share.