SquarePet hired Rich Zanetti to cover its South Central territory after promoting the prior rep

SquarePet hired Rich Zanetti as its South Central sales representative, replacing Kim Wright after the company promoted her internally. Zanetti is based in Austin and brings nearly 30 years in the pet industry, according to the company.

The handoff and what changes for the store

Zanetti takes over a territory Wright had been covering. The company said he will work with independent pet retailers, distributors, and strategic partners throughout the South Central region.

For a store in the territory, the practical change is the contact: a new rep means a new number for orders, promotional planning, and shelf support. The company said Zanetti has experience expanding specialty retail distribution and strengthening distributor partnerships, which suggests he may approach merchandising support or promotional cadence differently than Wright did.

The timing matters because Wright's promotion happened recently, according to the announcement, so stores that had standing calls or quarterly planning sessions with her are likely fielding introductory outreach from Zanetti now.

What Zanetti ran before this

Zanetti most recently served as Director of Sales at Nature's Logic, where the company said he led national sales strategy and team development while expanding retail distribution. Before that, he worked on the Victor brand's recovery following a product recall, held sales leadership roles at Open Farm, and spent 16 years at Mars/Nutro, where he earned multiple national and regional sales awards.

The recall recovery work is the line that stands out. A brand coming back from a recall has to rebuild trust store by store, which means the rep is doing damage control and relationship repair, not just order-taking. That experience translates directly to how a rep handles a stockout, a delayed shipment, or a pricing change that lands badly.

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Our read: the move maintains coverage, doesn't expand it

This is a replacement hire, not a territory expansion. Wright moved up, Zanetti moved in, and SquarePet kept the South Central region covered. The company's statement from Adam Bird, Vice President of Sales, called Zanetti "the ideal person to continue supporting our customers," which is continuity language, not growth language.

For a buyer evaluating SquarePet, whether Zanetti's background changes the support model depends on how he runs the territory. A rep who has run national sales strategy and led teams may operate differently than a rep who has only carried a territory. He may push harder on planogram placement, ask for more endcap time, or bring category data the prior rep didn't. Or he may run the same playbook Wright ran, in which case the only change is the voice on the phone.

The first quarterly business review will show which it is. If Zanetti brings new data, new merchandising tools, or a different promotional calendar, that signals SquarePet is using the handoff to upgrade the support model. If the review looks the same, the hire was about keeping the seat filled, not changing the approach.

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