Whenever I have gone into a Petco or a Petsmart I always get the same vibe; miserable fish, crap made in china and all looked after by underpaid unhappy employees.
I have actually had the wonderful experience of being in a Petco breakroom where the biggest decoration on the wall was a poster about the Colorado minimum wage being $8.31. You bet your ass they pay as close to that as they can. Glassdoor actually puts the average Petco salary in Denver at $8.40 an hour. You best appreciate those extra 9 cents an hour you entitled millennial stoner!
The Private Equity Plot Twist
When a company seems to be so profit orientated, I always get sceptical about their interests for my pets. Now this is where this article becomes more financially orientated. Petco and Petsmart are owned by CVC Capital Partners and BC Partners respectively. Now those are both private equity companies. Private Equity companies have absolutely one goal with regards to everything they do; that is to Profit Maximise. Private equity companies almost exclusively buy out failing companies and try to turn them around into profitable companies. They source cheaper products, they fire staff and they sell company assets all to “streamline” a business into a profitable one. Once they turn them around and make them profitable, they usually sell them on. Hopefully for significantly more than they bought them for. Like absolutely everyone in the financial industry, private equity companies fancy themselves to be capitalist geniuses. The purpose of this article is not to decry capitalism but rather to expose the lack of mutually shared interests in this particular case.
So when Petco and Petsmart are owned by private equity companies, that strive to make them profitable so they call sell them on, do you think they will have your pet’s best interests in mind? Or do you think it’s more about sucking every last nickel and dime out of your wallet? You may shop there because it is “better value” or there is a larger selection than a smaller pet store but where is your money really going? When does that question become the more important one?
PETA
What happens when a business prioritises profits? Thankfully, I have the US Department of Agriculture and PETA to answer that question. Holmes Farm, a major supplier of a variety of animals to Petco and Petsmart was investigated by the USDA and PETA and found to be keepings animals in an extremely abusive and neglectful environment, from extreme overcrowding to lack of water to lack of veterinary attention. Sick or dying animals were either gassed or frozen to death. You may villify puppy mills, but Petco and Petsmart are the same thing, just with significantly larger marketing budgets.
I won’t provide the full gory details of these investigations but I will include the links at the bottom of the article.
The long story short, be more sceptical about who gets your money. Support your local pet stores, the small ones the great your pet with treats and remember their names. Those people who are happy to see you and genuinely want your pets to be happy. After all, they opened their businesses because they love animals and only because they love animals. With your next pet food purchase you can make those animals who suffered in those breeding farms into martyrs. You can change the direction of an entire industry with your actions and make the profit maximising corporate pet stores suffer the same fate as the animals in their breeding farms.
We currently utilise the Krisers Natural Pet stores for our adoption events.
Here is the PETA article regarding animal conditions
Here is an RT article regarding the federal investigation.
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