Marleybones, the London-based dog food brand behind the shelf-stable Pantry Fresh range, has just landed its biggest retail deal to date, expanding into roughly 430 Pets at Home stores across the UK, plus online.
The rollout took effect in late June and marks the first time Pets at Home has carried Marleybones’ full nine-product lineup: chicken, lamb, beef and salmon meals, 12-packs, and two variety box formats. Before this, shoppers could find part of the range spread across a mix of retailers, including Waitrose, Ocado, Co-op and Whole Foods.
The company’s whole pitch rests on how it cooks the food. Meals are prepared in-pack at around 89°C, a method Marleybones says keeps them shelf-stable without preservatives, so there’s no freezer space needed, no defrosting and no subscription to sign up for.
Founded in 2020 by Josephine Rode Bager and Mikala Skov, the brand has built its identity around the idea that fresh dog food shouldn’t come with all the usual hassle: the freezer bags, delivery windows and constant restocking.
“Launching nationally with Pets at Home is an incredibly exciting milestone because it brings Pantry Fresh nutrition within reach of families across the UK,” Bager said. “We’re proud to partner with a retailer that shares our commitment to helping pets live happier, healthier lives,”
Skov added that the goal was always food that “fits into real life,” without owners having to choose between convenience and quality.
On the retailer’s side, Dani Lowry, head of category at Pets at Home, called Marleybones “a fantastic addition” to the dog food range, pointing to growing demand for convenient, nutritious options.
Pets at Home itself is by no means a small operation. It runs more than 460 stores, over 350 grooming salons, and close to 500 veterinary practices across the UK.
A wider shift across Europe
This kind of deal doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Fresh and premium dog food has been outpacing the rest of the UK’s roughly £3 billion (€3.5 billion) market for a while now, and most analysts point to the same reason: people increasingly treating their dogs as family, and they’re now willing to spend like it, even when the money is tight elsewhere.
That pattern shows up well beyond Britain, too. Across the EU, fresh and frozen dog food is projected to grow 7-10% a year through 2035, according to market researcher IndexBox, on track to reach somewhere between €5 and €7 billion by the end of the period.
The figures stand well ahead of the wider pet food category, and there’s plenty of room to grow: the same report estimates fresh and frozen diets reach only 15-20% of pet owning households across the bloc, with the biggest gaps in Southern and eastern Europe, where uptake still sits under 10%.
Grand View Research puts the broader European pet food market at roughly $36 billion USD as of 2024, and here, too, the growth story is less about more pets and more about owners spending more per pet. Germany, France, and the UK remain the region’s bigger markets by volume, though France stands out for its particular appetite for refrigerated fresh formats over frozen or dry alternatives, according to one recent industry market map.
For Marleybones, this UK expansion is a milestone in its own right. But it also puts the brand on steadier ground within a category that European retailers and manufacturers increasingly treat as one of the few genuinely durable growth stories in an otherwise sluggish food sector.
Marleybones’ Pantry Fresh range is available now at Pets at Home, marleybones.com, and Waitrose, Ocado, Co-op, and Whole Foods Market.
Featured image: via Marleybones
Disclosure: This article mentions clients of an Espacio portfolio company.
