The UK's largest pet care retailer, with about 450 stores, in-store grooming and a large veterinary group.
Pets at Home is a UK pet care business. Its stores sell food, toys, accessories and small animal supplies, and many have grooming salons. It also owns Vets for Pets, which its own jobs site calls the UK's largest small-animal veterinary group with more than 440 practices, and it has around 300 grooming locations. Its range covers dog, cat, small animal, fish, reptile and bird care, with advice from colleagues in store. Pets Grooming offers dog grooming, baths, microchipping and nail clipping, in stores and in standalone salons.
Anthony Preston founded the company in 1991, opening the first store in Chester. It bought Petsmart UK in 1999, which took it to 140 stores, and added in-store vet practices called Companion Care. The 200th store opened in Barnstaple in 2007, Groom Rooms began in seven stores in 2009, and the 450th store opened in 2021. The VIP loyalty club passed four million members by 2015. The vet side grew through the purchase of Vets4Pets in 2013, its first specialist referral centre in 2015, three more in 2016, and the UK's largest independent veterinary telehealth provider, The Vet Connection, in 2020. Subscription plans passed 1.6 million by 2022.
In its own words, the company puts "pets before profit" and aims to be the world's best pet care business, offering diet, lifestyle, grooming and veterinary services from one accessible source. It wants stores to be social hubs for pet owners. Its charity, the Pets at Home Foundation, reached 50 million pounds raised for pets in need by 2022, according to its history page.
Stores run from Aberdeen to Penzance. The support offices are in Manchester, with a distribution centre in Stafford and earlier centres in Stoke-on-Trent and Northampton. The company says it won Best Retailer and Best Place to Work at the Retail Week awards in 2021, and these are the company's own claims of recognition. The company page says it is investing in a new distribution facility that came onstream in 2023, and in 2022 announced an investment in Project Blu, a UK supplier of sustainable pet accessories.
The jobs this creates are wide: store colleagues, retail managers, groomers and grooming stylists, vets and vet nurses, warehouse and transport teams, and head-office roles in buying, finance, digital, technology, legal, marketing and people. It suits anyone who likes animals but also anyone interested in how stores, services and subscriptions fit together.
Website: www.petsathome.com
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