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Deals & M&ABy The PetRetailNews Desk3 min readAugust 4, 2026
Two European Consolidators Just Locked Down Wet-Food Capacity You Can't Get
Assisi and United Petfood just bought production lines in markets where you can't easily add them. Here's what that changes.
Assisi Pet Care bought UK natural pet food brand Forthglade from private equity firm IK Partners. United Petfood took a 50% stake in German wet food producer SmartPetPro.
The consensus read: two consolidators bought two brands
Both announcements frame the deals as brand acquisitions. Assisi CEO Chris Melander told GlobalPETS the move reflects "long-term commitment to investing in the UK and expanding its presence both nationwide and in Europe." United Petfood called the SmartPetPro partnership a "strategic step" in strengthening its European market position.
That's the story both buyers want told, and it's incomplete.
What they actually bought: manufacturing capacity in markets where you can't easily add it
Forthglade comes with a production facility in Devon, roughly 320 km from London. Assisi calls it a "key strategic asset" and says the company sees "significant opportunities to increase capacity, enhance sustainability and expand product innovation." That's consolidator-speak for: we now control wet-food lines in the UK that weren't ours yesterday.
United Petfood's investment in SmartPetPro, a company founded in 2022 and headquartered in Dessau, Germany, gives the Belgian private label manufacturer what it didn't have before: a German manufacturing footprint. United Petfood specifically cited SmartPetPro's "modern production site" and noted the deal will "reinforce its premium wet pet food offering while expanding its regional customer base."
Both buyers are locking up co-manufacturing capacity before they publicly need it. SmartPetPro is three years old. Neither brand is large enough to justify a capacity play on revenue alone. The asset is the lines themselves, and the ability to run premium wet recipes at European scale without waiting in someone else's production queue.
Who benefits from the brand story being believed
Consolidators hunting capacity don't want to advertise what they're doing, because it tips off competitors and drives up the price of the next facility. Framing the deal as a brand acquisition keeps the focus on portfolio expansion rather than on the shrinking pool of independent co-manufacturers.
For emerging brands, particularly US specialty operators eyeing European distribution or trying to meet 'made in EU' retailer mandates, the implication is harder to miss. Your co-man shortlist in the UK and Germany just got two lines shorter, and the remaining independents know it. Assisi and United now control more of the premium wet-food supply chain, which shifts negotiating leverage in their favor and could mean tighter terms or priority allocations during shortages.
Both deals happened close enough together that the buyers were likely hunting the same scarce thing. European wet-food capacity that can run premium recipes is harder to add than the market prices in, and consolidators with owned production have more control over allocations and landed cost than distributors relying on third-party co-mans.
Assisi says Forthglade will continue to operate as a standalone business, and United Petfood says SmartPetPro CEO Lars Oehlmann will continue to lead the company while co-founders Stefan Pfannmöller and Erich Herrmann remain involved. That structure, keep the brand, keep the team, control the lines, is the tell. The buyer gets optionality: run the acquired brand, run their own portfolio through the same facility, or do both and control allocations when capacity tightens.
The risk in our take: if Forthglade and SmartPetPro were genuinely underutilized, the capacity argument is weaker. But Assisi specifically said it sees opportunities to "increase capacity," and United Petfood called out SmartPetPro's production site as a reason for the investment. Neither buyer talks like they bought excess lines.
For independent retailers and the brands pitching them, the pattern to watch is whether consolidators with owned European production start undercutting distributors on landed cost or controlling allocations more tightly. If you stock brands in Assisi's or United Petfood's portfolios, the terms you negotiate in the next cycle will tell you whether the capacity play is working.
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