GREEN BAY – Carnivore Meat Co. will build a $55 million facility on Green Bay’s far east side to keep up with growing demand for its ultra-premium pet food products.
Carnivore has been a leader and innovator in producing raw frozen and freeze-dried pet foods and treats since CEO Lanny Viegut founded the company in Green Bay in 2012. It started with 30 employees working in 6,000 square feet of warehouse space and has grown to employ 210 people at four production sites.
The company’s Vital Essentials, Vital Cat and Nature’s Advantage brands can be found at more than 7,000 independent pet stores in the US, top e-commerce sites like Chewy and Amazon, and in 14 countries.
“We are poised to add more juice, more fuel to Vital Essentials so that in three, four, five years, everyone will know our name,” Viegut said. “We want to grow, invest, and be there when people decide they want a better way to feed their dog.”
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Carnivore’s future east side campus will include 235,000 square feet of office and manufacturing space that will enable the company to keep saying ‘yes’ to clients who want private label products and to keep up with the growing number of pet owners who feed their pets a frozen and freeze-dried raw meat diet. PetFoodIndustry.com in March called freeze-dried raw meat pet foods and treats a “top trend” to emerge from this spring’s Global Pet Expo in Orlando.
“The goal here is to always make sure we have available, open capacity for clients who want and need our help,” Viegut said. “As thousands of people pour into this category daily and weekly, if you don’t have the capacity, you can’t help someone out.”
The new campus, in the 3700 block of Finger Road, will include a new innovation center, and additional production capacity that incorporates automation, energy-saving features and sustainable materials. The facility will include 36 custom-built freeze-dryers that Carnivore designs itself, a key element of the company’s continued ability to sustain double-digit year-over-year sales growth dating back to 2012, Viegut said.
“If we build our own freeze dryers, it dictates the rate at which we can grow,” Viegut said.
Carnivore expects to begin production at the new campus by the end of 2023. The company plans to continue operating its existing production facilities on Green Bay’s east side after the new plant comes online. The 28-acre site also gives the company ample space for future expansions, too.
Carnivore Meat celebrated the start of construction with a ceremony Monday at which it unveiled designs for the facility. They were joined by community officials just weeks after Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich named Carnviore Green Bay’s Business of the Year during his annual State of the City address.
“Who knew people really love their pets?” Genrich told the crowd.
Carnivore’s pet-friendly campus will welcome pets into the office and includes an outside dog exercise area, just like at its existing production facilities, and a pet wash inside.
Viegut said the pet-friendly focus is a “pretty cool” feature of Carnivore’s workplaces, and one he’s confident helps retain and attract workers. That will be especially key as Carnivore expects to hire 150 more employees over the next five years to staff the new facility.
“When you put together the growth and success we’ve had in the marketplace and you look at our culture and how we operate, then pile on top of it that you can bring your dog work, how cool is that?” Viegut said.
Carnivore will be first in new Green Bay industrial park
Carnivore employees and leaders have grown used to being the first, so it should come as no surprise its new facility will be the first new development in Green Bay’s Grandview Industrial Park, a new industrial park and tax incremental financing district, or TIF, the city is establishing right now.
The new 200-acre industrial park runs along East Mason Street/Finger Road between Erie and Northview roads, east of the I-43 Business Park. Carnivore’s $55 million project is expected to create about $35 million in new property value that would generate about $860,000 in new property tax revenue each year.
A development agreement between the city and Carnivore indicates the company would buy the land from the city for about $480,000, and the city would reimburse the company 20% of the property taxes on a pay-as-you-go basis for the life of the new TIF district, which would close in 2042, unless extended.
The company started to search for more production space 13-14 months ago but found few buildings with the space it needed. Carnivore got its start on the city’s east side and all four of its facilities are on the east side, so Viegut said it made sense to build the new facility in the same area.
When he learned the city was working on developing a new industrial park, he said the opportunity to be the first in the new, greenfield industrial park rang true.
“We said, ‘that sounds like us,'” Viegut said. “We can be an anchor in that area. We hope to see neighbors pop up in the coming years.”
A new partner for growth
A new facility and new employees aren’t the only thing that has Viegut excited about Carnivore’s future. It also secured a new investor, Arbor Investments, a private equity firm focused exclusively on food, beverage and related industries.
Chris Tuffin, a partner at Arbor Investments, said Carnivore’s expansion is one of the largest projects’ Arbor has undertaken since its founding in 1999.
“This initiative to provide transformative growth capital exemplifies Arbor’s conviction investment philosophy, and the new campus will be critical to helping realize the game-changing growth vision we share with Lanny and the Carnivore team,” Tuffin said in a media release.
Viegut understands the words ‘private equity’ tends to raise concerns that “they’d strip everything out” of the company and leave it a shell of itself. But, he said, Arbor’s actions have matched their words since discussions began in October. The investment partnership was announced in December.
“We’re bucking that trend of companies pulling out of places like Green Bay and Wisconsin,” Viegut said. “Their actions and behaviors speak volumes. We believe in each other, we’re aligned and we’re doing it together.”
Contact Jeff Bollier at (920) 431-8387 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @JeffBollier.
