The Pet Food Institute elected Reed Howlett, CEO of Wellness Pet Company, as board chair for its 2027-2028 term. The trade association represents manufacturers that make most of the dog and cat food sold in the United States.
Howlett will lead PFI's board of directors and work with officers and members to advance the organization's priorities around pet food quality, safety, advocacy, and education, according to the announcement. PFI president and CEO Elise Fennig said the new leadership team brings experience from across the pet food industry.
The association Howlett now chairs
PFI's members account for most U.S. dog and cat food production. The organization reports its members generate more than $68 billion in domestic annual dog and cat food and treats sales, plus annual exports exceeding $2.4 billion. Member companies employ over 36,000 people across 34 states and purchase over $13.2 billion in agricultural inputs from U.S. farmers and ranchers, according to the association.
The organization was established in 1958 and represents manufacturers providing food for dogs and cats in 95 million U.S. households.
What the source did not disclose
The announcement named Howlett as chair but did not publish the full slate of 2027-2028 board officers. The source included a line reading "The full slate of 2027-2028 PFI Board officers includes:" followed immediately by boilerplate about the organization's founding, with no officer names or titles between.
PFI also did not detail specific policy priorities or advocacy goals for the two-year term, beyond Fennig's general statement about quality, safety, and education.
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Our read: the board composition we cannot see
PFI board leadership typically signals which manufacturers are investing in trade-level policy work and which supply chain or regulatory issues the industry will prioritize in advocacy. That matters to retailers because those priorities often preview shelf availability constraints, compliance costs, or ingredient-sourcing shifts before they land at store level.
Without the full officer slate, we're reading the chair appointment in isolation. Howlett leads a premium-positioned brand inside a category where the regulatory and sourcing questions increasingly split along processing method and ingredient-transparency lines. Whether the rest of the slate balances legacy kibble players with emerging fresh and freeze-dried operators would tell us more about where PFI's advocacy dollars go over the next two years.
The incomplete disclosure leaves buyers guessing which manufacturers are at the table when PFI weighs in on ingredient definitions, labeling rules, or import standards, all of which eventually change what you can stock and what it costs to comply.