Unleashing franchise success with Pet Valu
By Jordan Whitehouse
Adam Woodward has had a long career in franchising, but two early interactions with Pet Valu told him that this was the company for him.
The first happened about a dozen years ago, after he moved from Oakville, Ontario to nearby Burlington and started working as a field rep with Pet Valu. He and his dogs and cats had been loyal customers of a Pet Valu store in Oakville, but he hadn’t been there for a couple of years. His new job gave him a chance to return. “I walked in, and the manager there actually remembered me,” says Woodward. “Her first words were, ‘Where have you been!?’ I couldn’t believe it. I thought, ‘You remember me?’”
The first happened about a dozen years ago, after he moved from Oakville, Ontario to nearby Burlington and started working as a field rep with Pet Valu. He and his dogs and cats had been loyal customers of a Pet Valu store in Oakville, but he hadn’t been there for a couple of years. His new job gave him a chance to return. “I walked in, and the manager there actually remembered me,” says Woodward. “Her first words were, ‘Where have you been!?’ I couldn’t believe it. I thought, ‘You remember me?’”
More than 700 stores and counting
Those relationships have been a cornerstone of the legendary Canadian pet retailer since Geoffrey Holt opened the first Pet Valu store on Toronto’s Queen Street East in 1976. The company began franchising in 1987, and slowly started to grow, developing its own private label products and expanding into big and small markets across the province.
Growth accelerated around 2010, after Roark Capital Group acquired the company. It was then that Pet Valu embarked on an ambitious plan to relocate and remodel many of its existing stores, as well as start opening more locations across the country.
To grow fast, Pet Valu mainly focused on opening large corporate shops in plazas with big anchor tenants like grocery and liquor stores. By 2018, the average store footprint was 3,700 square feet, compared with 2,000 square feet in 2009. About 60 per cent of stores were franchised, with the other 40 per cent being corporate run.
Today, Pet Valu has more than 750 locations across the country, including more than 80 Chico pet stores in Quebec (Pet Valu acquired Chico in 2022). They are found in all types of markets—from the biggest urban centres to the smallest towns in the country—and come in a variety of sizes. Pet Valu stores are so common, in fact, that 74 per cent of Canadians live within five kilometres of at least one.
Now, after emerging from the pandemic with a fully updated technology stack, the company is looking for even more growth. The goal is to hit an eye-popping 1,200 stores nationwide over the long term, says Woodward. “And we want all net new growth to be franchise. Right now, 70 per cent of our stores [are] franchises, and we want that to keep growing.”
People first
One of the big reasons for that rosy outlook is simple: the booming—and lucrative—pet industry. Between 2020 and 2022, Canadian cat and dog populations grew from 8.1 million to 8.5 million for cats and 7.7 million to 7.9 million for dogs. And as Pet Valu president and CEO Richard Maltsbarger told the Globe and Mail recently, many of those new pets are being raised on the kinds of premium products found at Pet Valu.
But as Maltsbarger also said, those premium products require premium people to sell them. Which Pet Valu has in spades. “We win because of people” said Maltsbarger. “Our model is based off of some of the most compassionate, most expert people in the marketplace.”
Those people come from all walks of life, but Woodward says they look for a couple of key traits in franchisees in particular. For one, they need to be engaged with their community and their business, which includes working the sales floor and interacting with customers. They also need to have a genuine passion for this line of work. “This is an emotional business,” says Woodward. “Some customers seem to like talking about their pets more than their kids, so if I see that same energy and interest, combined with the engagement, you have a recipe for success.”
One of the company’s newest people is Jalal Mirfakhrai, the franchisee of a Pet Valu in the Oak Ridges community of Richmond Hill, Ontario. He opened his store a year ago, after working for about 15 years on the wholesale side of the pet industry in Iran. Moving back to Canada in 2021, he wanted to switch from wholesale to retail, and eventually landed on Pet Valu.
“There were two major advantages I saw with this company,” says Mirfakhrai. “The first was how organized the system is. It’s amazing when you compare it with other competitors. And the other thing is that they are very supportive—from the very beginning and right up to now. Every time I need something, there is always support from head office, the other franchisees, you name it. We’re like a family.”
Hear more success stories from Pet Valu franchisees on Franchise Canada Chats!
The road to 1,200
The initial franchisee training process includes a week of learning at the head office in Markham, Ontario, followed by two weeks of in-store training. But it’s not just job shadowing, says Woodward. “They have to do all of the day-to-day operations, from working the till to receiving trucks.” Then, once the franchisee is ready for their own store, the operations team is there with them for all of their firsts, including their first delivery, first orders, and first major events of the year.
Pet Valu also prides itself on its ongoing training and support, says Woodward. This is an industry that requires franchisees and staff to stay up to date on a huge swath of products, and the company’s online learning system is a key part of providing that knowledge.
“It’s amazing how much you have to know, but we’re talking about living animals here, so the fact that we can give good information, possible solutions, but also can advise when you need to go to a vet, gives real credibility,” says Woodward.
Sharing that knowledge with customers is one of the best parts of being a Pet Valu franchisee, says Mirfakhrai. Coming from the wholesale world where he would usually be alone in an office, he wasn’t sure how the switch to a customer-facing business would go. “But honestly, I love it,” he says. “I love talking with all these amazing people that come to the store, sharing their experiences with their pets and trying to solve their problems. It’s been really amazing.”
It’s been so amazing, in fact, that even though Mirfakhrai is only one year into being a Pet Valu franchisee, he is already in discussions to acquire a second location.
As for Pet Valu’s future as a whole, the target is to open 40 to 50 new stores this year alone, working toward the ultimate goal of 1,200 stores nationwide over the long term. They are well on their way to hitting those numbers, says Woodward. But since franchisees are a key part of this expansive future, it’s going to take a full team effort to get there, he adds. “We know that we have to sustain the support of the infrastructure that we’ve built up. And that goes to how we communicate, how we distribute inventory, and how my department supports franchisees in day-to-day operations. We’ve come this far, and I know we can keep this momentum going.”
