In the second week of May, Bologna, Italy, hosted the 20th edition of the pet industry’s premier trade show – Zoomark International. The event marks the high point of the year for VAFO, and as one might expect of a leading European pet food producer, once again our booth was among the largest. In addition to representatives of all the companies in the VAFO Group, i.e. VAFO Praha, Carry Pet Food, Prima Pet Premium, Pooch & Mutt, and Allco, we had an opportunity to meet with more than 100 new and existing partners, reuniting with friends from all over the world and showing them new products that are making big waves in the pet food industry.
We debuted our all-new Brit RAW Freeze-Dried Treat&Topper, an innovative product line that opens up a whole new category of freeze-dried products for pets. Thanks to new technology at our Estonian factory, we’re one of the few manufacturers with the ability to produce these products locally within the EU.
Another ground-breaking innovation that caught the attention of visitors to our booth is the first-ever vegetarian line to appear in our product portfolio. The new plant-based products comprise dry foods, snacks, and canned foods and will be produced under the Christopherus brand for distribution primarily in the German market. These highly tasty and 100% nutritionally balanced products are completely free of meat.
But we haven’t forgotten about the meat-lovers out there either. The new Carnilove True Fresh line is the perfect choice for people who want to indulge their cats and dogs with nutritious food containing lots of raw meat.
Sustainability is a fundamental pillar of VAFO’s manufacturing philosophy, as is evidenced in our portfolio by Brit Care Sustainable, a new line from our flagship brand Brit. These innovative formulas bring alternative sources of protein, such as insect, and other locally sourced ingredients together in a wholly eco-friendly production process. Everything is then packaged using fully recyclable materials. There’s also Planet Pet Society, one of our newest brands of snacks and wet foods for cats based on so-called second-chance ingredients.
An increasingly important item in the VAFO portfolio are veterinary diets, which place considerable emphasis not only on palatability but also on special dietary needs, such as those of pets who aren’t 100% fit. We’ve collaborated closely with veterinarians and experts in animal wellbeing to come up with eight new veterinary pouches for cats and canned food for dogs.
The notional icing on the cake comes in the form of new BRIT vitamins, which are soft, tasty, and bursting with nutrients to support the health of our four-legged companions.
On the second-to-last day of the fair, we hosted our legendary and very popular VAFO Party for more than two hundred of our industry friends and colleagues, thus bringing this successful run at Zoomark 2023 to a happy close.
