Schubert North America, a subsidiary of the German Schubert Group, has expanded its pet food customer base in Canada and the U.S. During the 2022 Pet Food Forum in Kansas City, May 2-4, 2022, the company debuted its portfolio to a broad audience of visitors from not only Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, but also other countries from across the globe. The forum was a suitable platform to exchange best practices with other suppliers from the pet food industry. 

Recently the pet food industry has seen significant growth in North America. During the pandemic, families and individuals increasingly opted for pet adoption or purchases, with cats and dogs being the most popular choices. A new dog owner usually becomes a pet food customer for an average of 10 years. As a natural result, pet food manufacturers recorded a higher demand in pet food sales, having to double or even triple their production, requiring process optimization and automation. 

While labor costs continue to rise on the one hand, on the other hand pet food buyers develop more diverse preferences in store location (in-store shopping vs. e-commerce), product packaging, product quality, product size and product variety. Schubert reports that it enables pet food manufacturers to package single-packs, multi-packs, various products and packaging formats all on one single source solution system. Schubert’s open machine architecture, quick-change overs as well as the company’s North American training and service centers have become further deciding factors of manufacturers opting for the German family-owned company.

Following the Petfood Forum in North America, Dieter Moessner, global key account manager at Gerhard Schubert GmbH, gave a keynote speech at the European Petfood Forum at end of May 2022. He explained how pet food can be reconciled with sustainability goals, and highlighted challenges the pet food industry is facing in terms of supply chains and changing consumer behavior. He also presented practical case studies that are already providing more sustainability in the industry

In other news, Schubert North America successfully completed a property acquisition in Charlotte, N.C., in April 2022. In addition to its new offices, an assembly hall will be built at the new location. Final assembly and commissioning for TLM packaging machines will be performed there, and there will be a workshop for service activities as well. In the past, customers often had to fly to Schubert’s global headquarters in Crailsheim, Germany, to accept new machine projects. In the future, acceptance of selected machines will take place directly on site in Charlotte.