Driven by heritage and quality, American Pet Nutrition is expanding nationally to provide better animal nutrition
American Pet Nutrition (APN) is a family-owned business of self-proclaimed pet lovers with a passion for animal nutrition and improving the quality of life for dogs and cats. Launched by Jack Behnken in 1972, the pet food company is based near Salt Lake City, Utah, and is guided by one simple principle – ‘Do It Better!’
CEO Ryan Wilson explains what this philosophy means for APN: “We are small but mighty. Internally, we like to use the boxing reference that ‘we punch above our weight’ as we compete against much larger corporations. I believe our size gives us a distinct advantage by allowing us to be nimble and quick to respond to both consumer trends and retailer needs. We still hark back to our heritage and believe we do it better than the big corporate brands.”
APN has several brands of pet food, ranging from value to super-premium, including its largest and fastest growing brand, Supreme Source® which offers super-premium, natural dry and wet dog food, baked biscuits, jerky treats, meal toppers and dry cat food. “Supreme Source® provides excellent nutrition and optimal digestion with a taste that pets love, at great value for pet parents,” describes Ryan. “Our full portfolio also includes brands like Atta Boy!® and Vita Bone® which have been in the market for over 40 years. We recently launched a new sub-brand within the Supreme Source® family called Total Nutrition, designed to provide nutritious yet budget-friendly options for dog owners feeling the economic crunch.
“Additionally, we are very excited about the opportunity to have Supreme Source® on the shelves at Walmart. We believe we offer the right combination of excellent nutrition and outstanding value that will appeal to their shoppers. We’ll begin with a handful of dog food SKUs in limited distribution and we’re optimistic that our performance will lead to future expansion, as we’ve experienced with our existing retailers. Our goal is to make our products more accessible to more pet parents around the country, and gaining distribution with the world’s largest retailer certainly helps.”
Ryan reveals the company’s approach to securing large retailer relationships is recognizing who APN is and who it competes with, especially as it has much lower advertising and promotional budget in comparison to larger brands. “Shelf space at retail is limited and very competitive,” he shares. “Sometimes it can be challenging for us to even secure a meeting with the buyer at a key retailer. When we get the opportunity to tell our story, we must provide a compelling case for why they should take a chance on a smaller company like APN – this is where we rely heavily on syndicated market data to show how our products perform. For the past several years, we’ve been the fastest growing premium pet food in the grocery channel and we’re extremely grateful to the retailers who took a chance on us in the beginning.”
Growth mindset
Considering its impressive growth within the grocery sector, APN has implemented internal processes and strategically developed systems that can be highly automated, helping the business cope with expansion and scale easily. “We partner with some of the best external supplier, manufacturing, broker, and logistics teams that have helped support our growth,” adds Ryan. “Most importantly, we have an amazing team with a lot of CPG experience, and the growth of APN is driven by a highly experienced team. I am proud to lead such an incredibly talented and resourceful group of people. While we do experience some growing pains here and there, we are well positioned to handle the growth – in fact, we welcome it!”
APN has full support of the Behnken family who have shared equity ownership with the entire team, which Ryan says has boosted his efforts to build an even stronger growth and ownership mindset. “Their continued support has helped us build a culture of entrepreneurship, empowerment and accountability,” he continues. “We’re a small team, every single employee is critical to our success, and I believe we have all adopted a growth mindset.” With its heritage in pet food manufacturing and sourcing of ingredients, the company is dedicated to meeting and maintaining quality standards across its supply network, ensuring all its recipes are healthy and safe. APN sources the finest ingredients from all over the world, buying only from trusted suppliers who are equally passionate about quality and food safety standards.
Furthermore, the company is leveraging technology to minimize manual processes and operate efficiently, as part of its strategic focus to be customer centric. “We utilize NetSuite as our ERP, and we’ve partnered with TrueCommerce EDI to streamline order integration and invoice processing for our customers,” Ryan elaborates. “We use CPG Toolbox to help us effectively plan, manage, reconcile and evaluate our promotional trade spend. We also use Forecast Pro software which helps us efficiently manage our forecasts and provide suppliers with an accurate picture of upcoming demand.”
Innovation pipeline
With its existing retailers adding more SKUs and shelf space for APN’s brands, 2026 looks set to be another exciting year for the company. It has also gained a healthy distribution with new retailers and markets. Ryan highlights: “I’m excited to see Supreme Source® continue to gain traction and grow. I believe it will become a household name over the next five years and have a significant presence on retailers’ shelves. We’ll continue to enter new channels, and I believe we’ll be recognized as a major player in the pet industry. We have a robust and exciting innovation pipeline that I’m looking forward to rolling out into the marketplace in the coming years. I couldn’t be prouder of what our team has accomplished so far and I’m even more excited about what we’re going to accomplish next!”