Lily’s Kitchen has signed a major distribution agreement with Eldorado in the Nordic region so the UK company’s dog and cat recipes and treats will now be available to specialist retailers across all of Western Europe for the first time.
And the pet food business, founded in 2009, is now looking for distributors in Russia and Poland.
The new agreement is a major milestone for Lily’s Kitchen, which doubled its international footprint in 2019 by targeting specialist pet retailers. The company says this strategy has helped it to scale consistently while building brand recognition and credibility.
Thomas Bayel, international sales director at Lily’s Kitchen, said: “As a family-founded business, which was looking for a premium, natural, pet food brand for its portfolio, Eldorado is a perfect fit for Lily’s Kitchen, and the millions of pets parents across Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland.
“We are always keen to tailor our products to local markets and therefore working with full-service experts who have local insight is key to our strategy. Using this knowledge, we’ve developed larger formats for the markets in the Nordic region to better suit local demands and shopping habits.”
Thomas Degnbol, sales director at Eldorado, said: “We’re excited to be the first distributor in our market to offer Lily’s Kitchen’s proper, natural, pet food. Lily’s Kitchen is an exciting brand and we’re confident specialist pet shops and pet owners will appreciate the use of natural ingredients, human-inspired recipes and charming brand that Lily’s brings to our market.”
This milestone follows the appointment of new distributors in 2020 – Maravet-Covetrus in Romania, Laboratoire Agecom in France, Van der Meer in The Netherlands and Hega in Germany – as well as 10-fold growth in online sales through local ecommerce partners and major platforms such as Amazon during the covid-19 pandemic.
Thomas Bayel continued: “Despite COVID-19 we’ve been pursuing deals and new partnerships so that pet owners can access something new and healthy for their pets as retailers reopen their doors. We’ve also seen a rise in online orders across Europe which proves there is plenty of demand for our products and love for our brand in many countries.
“The next challenge for us is to complete our retail availability across Eastern Europe and we’re proactively looking for distributors and partners in Poland and Russia who can help us with our approach of always launching Lily’s Kitchen in speciality pet stores first. After that, there are very few limits to our international ambitions.”
As well as Europe, Lily’s Kitchen is available in Hong-Kong, Taiwan, China, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.
