Open Farm Enters PetSmart, and the Premium-vs-Indie Tradeoff Gets Real

Open Farm launches in nearly 1,700 PetSmart stores

The deal, announced June 8, puts Open Farm's dry, wet, fresh, freeze-dried raw, treat, and supplement lines into PetSmart stores across the U.S. and Canada, plus the retailer's site and app. Merchandising displays will anchor the brand in-store rather than leaving it to blend into the shelf.

The placement lifts Open Farm's footprint to more than 9,500 retail doors in North America, up from the roughly 5,500 independent stores it cited a few years ago. PetSmart, for its part, runs nearly 1,700 stores across the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico, with veterinary care in more than 700 of them.

Founded in 2014, Open Farm is a certified B Corporation that sells on sourcing transparency, animal-welfare standards, and sustainability. It raised more than $65 million in a 2021 minority growth round led by General Atlantic, alongside Encore Consumer Capital, on the back of years of triple-digit annualized growth. The company is one of a small group of premium brands that turned an ingredient-traceability story into national shelf presence.

Why mass distribution risks Open Farm's independent base

The independent pet channel has long operated on an unwritten deal: premium brands stay out of big-box, and independents give them shelf space, staff recommendations, and loyalty in return. Brands like Fromm and Orijen built followings partly by guarding that exclusivity. When a brand crosses into PetSmart or Petco, independents often read it as a betrayal and cut the line.

Open Farm is betting that math has changed. Roughly 5,500 independent doors is a ceiling. Nearly 1,700 PetSmart stores plus the retailer's digital traffic is a different order of reach. For a brand that already sells heavily through Chewy and its own DTC site, the independent channel is no longer the whole business. It's one leg of a stool.

The risk is real anyway. If a meaningful slice of independents drop Open Farm in response, the brand trades a loyal, high-margin, recommendation-driven channel for a high-volume one where it competes on endcaps and promotions against Hill's, Blue Buffalo, and PetSmart's own private labels. Pricing discipline becomes the whole game. If Open Farm's bags show up cheaper at PetSmart than at the neighborhood store, the independents don't just feel slighted, they have a P&L reason to walk.

There's a reason PetSmart wanted this. The retailer is premiumizing its consumables assortment to defend basket value against Chewy's subscription grip and grocery's creep into pet. A transparency-forward, B Corp brand with real equity is exactly the kind of name that justifies a trip to the store. The partnership is as much about PetSmart upgrading its shelf as it is about Open Farm expanding its reach.

What to watch as premium brands chase big-box shelf

The signal to track is whether independents retaliate, and how loudly. Watch the trade forums and distributor order patterns over the next two quarters for evidence that neighborhood stores are trimming Open Farm facings or swapping in a competitor that still pledges channel exclusivity.

Price integrity is the second tell. If Open Farm holds the same shelf price across PetSmart, Chewy, and independents, it signals a brand serious about not undercutting the partners who built it. Visible big-box discounting would say the opposite.

This is also the latest data point in the DTC-and-indie-to-big-box migration reshaping premium pet. As fresh and premium brands mature past their direct-to-consumer growth curves, omnichannel scale starts to look less optional. The brands that pull it off without diluting their story will define the next phase of premiumization. The ones that chase volume and lose their identity will become cautionary tales.

Source: Open Farm and PetSmart Partner to Expand Access to Premium, Responsibly Sourced Pet Nutrition, via Business Wire