MIAMI — Custom Veterinary Services (CVS) announced the acquisition of Green Mountain Animal (GMA), effective Feb. 6, with the combination of the two businesses forming CompletePet, LLC. The new company, with state-of-the-art facilities in Florida and Vermont, will become a leading contract manufacturer of nutritional supplements — in soft chew, liquid and powder formulations — as well as medicated dermatological pet supplies and grooming products.
Worth Turner, chief executive officer of Miami-based CVS, will serve as CEO of the new company while each business unit will continue to be run by its respective leadership teams. Dale Metz, founder of Green Mountain, will stay on as a significant shareholder and key leader for the combined business. He will also join the board of directors of CompletePet.
“The two companies worked together in the past to help solve unique customer supply demands,” Turner said in an exclusive interview with Pet Food Processing. “Through those partnerships the teams grew close, and Dale and I developed a mutual respect, admiration and friendship. We realized that we had a shared vision for building customer-first organizations, powered by innovation and flexible service solutions. Further, we both believed that as the supplements market continues to develop, customers will need more sophisticated supply chain and innovation partners with redundant capacity.”
Dale Metz (left), founder of Green Mountain Animal, and Worth Turner, chief executive officer of Custom Veterinary Services, are combining production resources and expertise to form CompletePet LLC.
| Source: CompletePet LLCCustom Veterinary Services is a co-manufacturer of nutritional supplements, medicated dermatological pet supplies and grooming products. The roots of the company go back to 2005 through the Martinez family, first producing dermatological pet products in a 5,000-square-foot facility, then adding soft chews to the mix in an expanded 20,000-square-foot space. In 2021, a capital investment and partnership with Align Capital Partners took the company to the next level with a new production facility, expanded product lines, and strategic direction for the future. The partnership allowed the company to open a new 150,000-square-foot production and warehousing site in Hialeah, Fla., just a few miles northwest of Miami.
Green Mountain Animal was founded in 2017 by Dale and Keeli Metz. Dale Metz is a long-time industry executive and National Animal Supplement Council (NASC) founding member. The company grew consistently over the last seven years, moving into a new, state-of-the-art, 60,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Milton, Vt., in 2022. The company offers leading R&D, manufacturing and supply chain capabilities for soft chew and powder format supplements and solutions. The company recently added an additional 60,000 square feet of warehouse space to its production facility.
“This is the natural evolution in a growing and innovative market,” Metz said. “Our market is getting more sophisticated, and our customers are asking for better partners. And together, we are better. We offer more capabilities (liquids, powders, soft chews and more), more expertise, and more certainty in supply. The combination of our two businesses helps to ensure the continued growth of our market.”
With each production facility managed under its original leadership, each legacy company will keep its name for a while during the transition.
“The legacy names will remain for some time, but we believe in moving forward as one entity. It is important that we signify this new chapter together with a new name,” Turner said. “We are no longer CVS and GMA independently, we are CompletePet together. We are building something truly unique and special together and we want to cement that commitment and partnership with a unified name.
“We view the name ‘CompletePet’ as a perfect reflection of our mission to improve the lives and wellness of our pets in every way possible. We wanted to select a name that reminds us every day that we are here for our customers and our pets, and that inspires us to strive always for complete wellness solutions for our pets,” he added.
The partnership will combine the strengths and expertise of each manufacturer. While both companies produce soft chew supplements, GMA will bring additional development and production capabilities in supplement powder formulations to CompletePet. CVS will also be able to offer liquid solutions to GMA’s current customer base, including over-the-counter topical solutions, grooming products, toothpastes, water additives and liquid nutritional solutions.
“Our goal is to create a better partner for our customers, our employees and ultimately our pets,” Turner said. “The first focus is to build upon our collective strengths in redundant capacity, robust vendor partnerships, and collaborative problem solving to deliver the most confident supply base for our customers. A great example of this collaboration is our immediate and ongoing work with our vendor partners to offset rising material prices — the importance of which only increases with recent tariff conversations — through our combined purchasing power. We will further enhance these solutions with significant investments in innovation. Innovation will drive the future of pet wellness, and together we will be at the forefront of this push.”
Immediate changes in operations include the addition of a new 60,000-square-foot warehouse in Vermont to expand storage capabilities and the building out of the supplement powder production capabilities at the Miami plant — CVS has produced powders in the past, but it hasn’t been a regular part of its product mix in recent years. Future plans for CompletePet will include rolling out new production capabilities and formats in each location to better serve its new customer base, according to Turner.
CompletePet will share its new branding and production capabilities with the industry at Global Pet Expo in Orlando, Fla., in March at Booth 3478.
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