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Deals & M&ABy The PetRetailNews Desk5 min readAugust 12, 2026
VAFO Just Bought a DTC Brand That Never Needed Your Shelf. If You Stock Their Other Lines, Read This Twice.
The manufacturer behind brands on your shelf now owns a channel built to reach the same customer without you.
You stock a brand. The parent company that makes it just bought a direct-to-consumer pet food operation that ships to doorsteps, not shelves. The decision you're facing: do you keep carrying the parent's other lines, knowing they now compete with you for the same customer?
VAFO Group acquires Pets Deli
VAFO Group, the European pet food manufacturer behind Carnilove and other premium brands distributed across more than 90 countries, acquired Pets Deli, a Berlin-based direct-to-consumer brand selling wet food, dry food, raw feeding, snacks, and supplements through its own digital platform. The acquisition adds more than €40 million to VAFO's current turnover of over €700 million, the company said.
Pets Deli will continue operating under its own brand, with a stated focus on leveraging VAFO's manufacturing and sourcing capabilities to accelerate DTC growth, strengthen customer retention, and expand the product portfolio. VAFO employs more than 1,500 people across nine European countries.
Pavel Bouška, chairman of VAFO Group, said the acquisition fits the group's long-term strategy of building a strong European portfolio of premium pet food brands, developing deeper direct relationships with pet owners, and using consumer data and digital capabilities as a driver of future growth. "Germany is one of the most important pet food markets in Europe, and for us, Pets Deli is the right partner to strengthen our position there," Bouška said.
The structural conflict VAFO just bought
VAFO now owns retail brands you may stock and a DTC operation that sells directly to pet owners. The company frames this as portfolio expansion. We'd frame it differently: the parent company behind brands on your shelf now also owns a channel built to reach the same customer without you.
Pascal Haenle, Pets Deli's managing director and COO, said the deal gives the brand "access to world-class manufacturing, R&D and procurement", which the company says means better products, faster, at stronger margin. The question for retailers: does that operational advantage flow to the brands you stock, or does it stay inside the DTC operation the parent now controls?
The consumer data piece matters. Bouška explicitly named "consumer data and digital capabilities" as a driver of future growth. Pets Deli's platform generates purchase behavior, reorder patterns, and customer preferences. VAFO now owns that data stream for Pets Deli's customer base. You don't. If future product development decisions tilt toward what that direct customer data shows, the DTC brand may see new SKUs before they reach retail distribution.
Pull the sales data for every VAFO-owned brand you carry. Not category performance, brand-level sell-through, by SKU, for the recent period. You're looking for two things: which SKUs are actually moving, and which ones you're carrying because the rep asked nicely. If a VAFO brand is sitting on your shelf with slow turns while the parent company just acquired a competing direct channel, you're subsidizing their DTC buildout with your shelf space.
Renegotiate the terms before the next reorder. Haenle said the acquisition gives Pets Deli access to VAFO's manufacturing and procurement capabilities, which he described as delivering products "at a stronger margin." If VAFO's operational scale now benefits the DTC brand, the next time the rep calls, the question is: what does that scale buy me? Ask for better terms, or a commitment that new SKU launches come to retail distribution on a timeline that doesn't leave you behind. If they won't give it, that tells you where you rank.
Watch the SKU velocity on the DTC side. Pets Deli's site is public. You can see what they're pushing, what's on the homepage, what's in the new-product rotation. If a SKU launches there and doesn't show up in your distributor's catalog right away, you know the parent company may be testing demand direct before offering it to retail. That's their prerogative, but it means you may not be the first look. Adjust your buy accordingly. Don't carry a deep SKU count from a brand that may be using retail as the secondary channel.
The failure mode: carrying a brand while the parent builds a competing channel. The cost isn't just the margin on the SKUs you're stocking today. The risk is the customer who walks in, sees a VAFO-owned brand on your shelf, goes home, searches for it, finds Pets Deli, and subscribes. You just spent rent, labor, and working capital to drive awareness for a brand whose parent now owns a direct path to that customer. If you're stocking VAFO brands in the categories Pets Deli sells, wet food, dry food, raw feeding, snacks, and supplements, that's the trade you're making unless the SKU is moving fast enough to justify it.
Our read: this acquisition signals where manufacturers see the better economics
VAFO didn't buy Pets Deli to diversify. They bought it because Bouška said the goal is "deeper direct relationships with pet owners" and using "consumer data and digital capabilities as a driver of future growth." That's not retail language. That's DTC language. Tania Moser, Pets Deli's founder, said the brand has "always stood for one thing: giving every dog and cat exactly the nutrition they need." That's brand language. The deal language is in the revenue figure: the acquisition adds more than €40 million to a €700 million base, and the parent company thought it was worth owning outright.
The pattern we're watching: how many other manufacturers are building the same path. If this acquisition model works, and by "works" we mean VAFO's stated goal of deeper direct customer relationships and data-driven growth actually delivers, other manufacturers may follow. The brands you stock today could become house competitors if their parent companies decide direct customer access is worth more than retail distribution margin.
The leverage is in the data you pull before the next reorder. If the brand is moving, keep it. If it's not, you just got permission to cut it without guilt. VAFO made a choice about where to deploy capital. You get to make a choice about where to deploy your shelf space. Make it count.
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