Link Snacks, Inc., the Minong, Wisconsin-based snack maker behind Jack Link's beef jerky, said Wednesday its Rare Breed pet treat brand is now available on Chewy, marking the label's entry into one of the United States' highest-traffic e-commerce destinations for pet products.
The launch gives Rare Breed access to Chewy's estimated 20 million-plus active customer accounts, a distribution footprint that the company said materially widens the brand's reach beyond its existing direct-to-consumer and specialty retail channels. The treats — available in beef and pork formats — are positioned at the premium end of the dog snack market, carrying a three-ingredient formulation: real meat, flaxseed and vinegar, with no fillers, artificial preservatives or by-products.
The move arrives as the human-grade and minimally processed pet food segment continues to outpace the broader pet treat category. According to industry tracker data cited in recent trade analyses, premium and functional dog treats have grown at a compound annual rate of roughly 8.0% to 10.0% over the past three years, driven by pet owners applying the same label-scrutiny to companion animal food that they apply to their own diets. That consumer crossover is the precise positioning Rare Breed is attempting to own.
Link Snacks, privately held and best known for its human jerky portfolio, launched Rare Breed as a deliberate extension of its core meat-processing competency into the pet channel — a market where per-unit margins on premium SKUs can run significantly above those in the human snack aisle. The brand's American-made sourcing and short ingredient deck are central to its retail narrative, aligning with broader retailer demands for transparency at point of sale.
Chewy has increasingly curated its assortment toward limited-ingredient and high-protein treat lines as it defends market share against Amazon's expanding private-label pet business. Adding brands with a verifiable provenance story and a differentiated formulation fits that merchandising strategy. For Link Snacks, the partnership represents a scalable path to recurring subscription revenue through Chewy's Autoship program, which accounted for approximately 78.0% of Chewy's net sales in its most recently reported fiscal year.
The pet treat sector sits at an inflection point as consolidation accelerates across the premium pet food space and large-format retailers intensify pressure on mid-tier brands. Rare Breed's Chewy listing positions it alongside established clean-label competitors and will serve as a near-term test of whether Link Snacks' brand equity in human jerky translates into wallet share among premium pet-category consumers.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
