SuperZoo's Best New Product Is a Washing Machine Cleaner. The Question Is Whether You Stock It.

A washing machine cleaning tablet won SuperZoo's top new product award in the Home and Lifestyle category.

The question most buyers are actually asking: does a laundry product belong on a pet retail shelf?

The plain answer: SuperZoo said yes. Uproot Clean won First Place for Best New Product in the Home and Lifestyle category at SuperZoo's new product showcase with Washing Machine Cleaner Pro, a water-soluble tablet designed to reduce buildup, grime, residue, and odor caused by pet hair in washing machines. The formula uses what the company calls FurGUARD, a blend of enzymes that target proteins found in pet hair.

This marks Uproot Clean's fifth award in its first six trade shows, and its second award this year for its pet-household laundry line. The brand also won Best New Product in the Innovation category at Global Pet Expo in March for its Laundry Cycle Pro concept.

"A first-place award at Global Pet Expo, and now a first-place award at SuperZoo just six months later for our laundry line, that's a strong signal from the industry," said Dan Fallak, VP of Commerce at Uproot Clean. "We've seen an incredible surge in consumer demand for our laundry line, and it's exciting to see pet industry pros, shop owners, retail buyers, and distributors now showing that same level of excitement."

The award signals that the industry is willing to recognize household-adjacent products as legitimate pet retail SKUs.

The caveat: you're betting the customer sees their washing machine as a pet problem

The product solves a real issue, pet hair buildup is a common culprit behind washing machine wear and breakdown, and pet hair and odor create laundry challenges that lead many pet parents to report washing significantly more loads than the average household. But the question for a store owner is whether a customer walking in for food and treats will connect that problem to your shelf.

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The household-adjacent category, cleaning products, laundry aids, home care items marketed to pet owners, sits in the gap between what a pet store traditionally stocks and what a pet owner actually needs to manage life with animals. The award signals that buyers are willing to test that gap, but it doesn't answer whether your specific customer base will buy it.

"What we're doing is bringing a completely new, high-velocity category of consumables to pet retailers," Fallak said. "And retailers are responding, at SuperZoo we saw over 5X the order interest in our laundry SKUs compared to just six months ago at Global Pet Expo."

That 5X jump in order interest is the tell. Buyers are placing orders, which means they're committing shelf space and betting on repeat purchase velocity.

What to do given both

If you already stock cleaning or grooming wipes: The customer who buys those is already solving pet household problems at your store rather than the grocery aisle. A washing machine cleaner is the same customer, different room. Test it on an endcap near checkout or adjacent to your existing cleaning SKUs. Give it a 60-day window and track whether it moves on impulse or requires education.

If you don't stock any household-adjacent products: The award is peer validation, but it's not a mandate. The question is whether you want to be early on a category that could add margin and basket size, or whether you'd rather wait until a customer asks for it. The risk of being early is dead inventory; the risk of waiting is that your competitor stocks it first and becomes the store where pet owners solve more problems.

If you're a brand operator watching this: Uproot Clean was the first to bring a pet-household-specific machine cleaner to market, according to founder Mehul Patel, and the company is now building out a full suite of laundry products formulated around the challenges pet households face. The award proves that household products with a pet angle can compete for shelf space traditionally reserved for direct pet care SKUs. The window is open, but it won't stay uncrowded.

The award signals that the industry is willing to recognize household-adjacent products as legitimate pet retail SKUs.

The failure mode and what being wrong costs

If you stock it and it sits, you've committed an endcap to a category your customer doesn't connect to your store. The cost is the opportunity cost of whatever else could have gone there, a known mover, a seasonal display, a brand extension in a category you already own.

If you skip it and the category takes off, you've ceded the household-solutions customer to whoever stocks it first. The cost is the margin on a high-velocity consumable and the customer who starts solving one more problem somewhere else.

The award doesn't make the decision for you. It tells you what buyers at SuperZoo are betting on before the rep calls your competitor.

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