The Deal

The Farmer's Dog, the direct-to-consumer human-grade pet food company, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Woof, the functional enrichment and wellness brand best known for its Pupsicle refillable device. Financial terms were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close in 2026, subject to customary closing conditions.

The move signals a strategic pivot for The Farmer's Dog beyond its core subscription meal-plan business. Since founding, the New York-based company has delivered more than one billion meals and positioned itself as a disruptor to heavily processed conventional pet food. The Woof acquisition is the company's first known M&A transaction and its most explicit statement yet that it intends to compete across the broader pet wellness category — not just food.

Why It Matters

The pet industry has seen sustained premiumisation pressure, with operators and investors alike chasing the intersection of nutrition, enrichment, and preventive health. Woof, founded in 2019, ranked No. 3 overall and No. 1 in Consumer Products on the 2025 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in America — a signal of the segment's commercial momentum. Its Pupsicle device, a refillable wellness system designed to combine play with functional ingredient delivery, has reached millions of households and helped establish what Woof describes as a new category of refillable pet wellness systems.

For The Farmer's Dog, the logic is compounding: nutrition and enrichment are among the few product categories consumed by a dog every single day, meaning incremental share of wallet on either dimension builds recurring revenue over an animal's lifetime. "Our mission has always been to help dog people do their best for their dogs," said Jonathan Regev, CEO and co-founder of The Farmer's Dog. "Nutrition is the foundation of a long, healthy life, but enrichment and play are also essential."

Woof founder Daniel Haarburger framed the deal as an acceleration of his company's innovation roadmap. "We've dedicated ourselves to bringing real innovation to life," he said, adding that joining The Farmer's Dog would allow the brand to set "an even higher bar for the pet industry."

Structure & Advisors

Woof will operate as an independent division of The Farmer's Dog following close, with existing products and customer relationships continuing unchanged. BofA Securities acted as exclusive financial advisor and Latham & Watkins LLP as legal counsel to The Farmer's Dog; BofA Securities and J.P. Morgan provided committed financing for the transaction. Harris Williams advised Woof, with KO Law serving as its legal counsel.

The deal extends a pattern visible across the food and beverage M&A landscape, where founder-led brands with strong direct-to-consumer infrastructure are using inorganic growth to deepen category ownership rather than simply expand distribution. Pet food and pet wellness, in particular, have attracted significant deal flow as operators look to capture spending from consumers who increasingly treat companion animals as family members — a behavioral shift that has benefited premium and functional product tiers disproportionately.

For trade observers tracking the direct-to-consumer pet food sector, the Woof acquisition positions The Farmer's Dog as a potential platform company rather than a single-category operator — a distinction that could affect how future investors and strategic acquirers value the business.

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.