Peter Roy, a well-respected figure in the UK and European pet food industry, is launching an exciting new business called COYA Pet. Retailers and buyers will get first glimpse of the brand at PATS Sandown, which opens on Sunday.

Peter, the MD of COYA Pet, spoke about his new venture on the eve of the UK’s Spring Pet Industry Exhibition, and explained why he believes the brand will take the market by storm. 

“COYA is a new-to-market Freeze-Dried Raw pet food,” said Peter. “Anyone who knows me knows I love the raw petfood market – I spent 10 years driving the raw frozen market in UK and Europe and loved every minute. When I left the business a couple of years ago I spent a lot of time over in the US and was really amazed at how they had taken raw to another level. 

“In the US now, the raw market has evolved to both raw frozen and raw Freeze-Dried – and in eight years the raw Freeze-Dried market now outsells the raw frozen market – because it’s convenient. 

“At COYA our aim is to make raw feeding more accessible and convenient for pet owners and retailers. We’ve taken our inspiration from the US market and developed a product range, made in the UK, that puts both pet health and pet owner convenience first through Freeze-Drying technology – giving them convenient raw.”

Why is Freeze-Dried pet food so important to the market?  

Raw feeding is quite rightly at the forefront of many owners’ minds when choosing what to feed their pet – I still believe raw is best. However, it can often be inconvenient and in my experience it caused people to move away from it completely or never entered in the first place. The raw feeding market is today worth about £250m but by making it more convenient COYA will make a huge difference in growing the market in another step change. By bringing convenience to the sector it will open up to a much wider consumer audience.

Why’s it so good for retailers as well as pet owners?

There’s a huge margin impact for retailers when stocking raw frozen pet food, and a massive erosion on margin for them. The cost of running freezers as well as specialised delivery means that this type of food can become margin reductive – a double door upright for instance can cost £2,500 per year in energy costs alone, so you need to sell £7,500 at 33% margin just to break even. So for retailers, Freeze-Dried Raw food is a way of offering the nutritional benefits of raw without the costs of stocking specialised food, maintain all the margin from the supplier.

From a pet owner’s point of view, we know that many people ‘want to feed raw but…’  There’s lack of time, it’s inconvenient and storage can be a problem. So COYA’s Freeze-Dried Raw range of products offers them raw without the chore.

How do you see the future of pet nutrition? 

All the indicators suggest that premium brands which have a clear point of difference, and strong understandable consumer message will continue to grow well. Similarly, those economy brands, often multi-channel will continue to grow. I believe it’s the mid-range brands that are losing ground; often with consumers more comfortable to move away from a mid-range brand to an economy brand…but were not seeing this at the high meat, or premium brand market. 

Treats continue to grow nicely too – if people are trading down for food they are spending more on treats. Natural feeding will continue to soar. I believe raw is best and so do many retailers and consumers, but it can be inconvenient to buy, inconvenient to store and inconvenient to serve. So with COYA’s positioning as convenient raw, we are so excited to be at the forefront of both a retailer and pet owner solution...keep feeding raw, but Freeze-Dried Raw – if not a complete swap a partial swap, when you are away from home, or just a bit short on time or preparation, for example.

What can we expect from COYA in the future?

COYA is a small team of really dedicated individuals, all from pet speciality – you’ll know them all. We’re here to help retailers understand the potential  and listen to your thoughts. With our state-of-the-art Freeze-Dried technology and our decades of experience in the pet food industry, we have only just got started. Our aim is to transform the raw category but pet food as a whole. Watch this space!

COYA Pet is on stand L12 in the Surrey Hall at PATS Sandown.