Stella & Chewy’s turns rescue-dog devotion into a global benchmark for pet food safety
When Marie Moody took home two rescue dogs in 1997, it was the beginning of a love story that launched a highly successful raw pet food business. Since its founding in 2003, Stella & Chewy’s has been obsessed with pet nutrition, using only the finest responsibly sourced ingredients, offering tasty food for pets while providing the best customer experience for pet parents. Marie’s inspiration came from her beloved dogs – Stella and Chewy – specifically following Chewy’s diagnosis with an autoimmune disease.
Based in Marie’s home State of Wisconsin, the company has grown tremendously over the past 20 years, and Marie remains connected with the business, serving as a trusted advisor to CEO, Jay Thompson. Jay joins Food Chain to tell us more about Stella & Chewy’s, which he describes as ‘built from a very personal place’ after life-altering advice from a veterinarian. “The vet at the shelter actually recommended that Marie not adopt Chewy given his poor health,” begins Jay. “But Marie had already made up her mind, and she knew she needed a plan to help Chewy.” That plan recommended by the vet involved feeding both rescue dogs a raw diet of protein, fruits, and vegetables, which she spent time preparing herself. “Chewy’s health improved dramatically,” reveals Jay. “In fact, he began to thrive! That was the spark behind the idea to launch these meals prepared with love as a business, which is how Stella & Chewy’s was born.”
Exceptional safety standards
Beginning in the founder’s Brooklyn brownstone, the food was prepared, frozen and transported to retailers – via taxi. “That’s the founding story,” underlines Jay. “Marie started small, moving from her kitchen to using co-packers for the first few years before moving the company to the Midwest and opening the first manufacturing facility in Muskego, Wisconsin. The first products were raw frozen patties which were difficult to handle and transport. Therefore in 2006, Marie came up with the idea of freeze-drying the raw food – removing the water, locking in nutrients and making the products more convenient to ship and store. Our early products were just for dogs but in 2013, we also began producing food for cats, starting with freeze-dried and frozen raw options.” Over time, the company has developed a full range of high-quality products for both dogs and cats, including premium kibble, wet food, treats, and nutritional toppers and mix-ins designed to tempt fussy eaters. “Our toppers include Meal Mixers, Marie’s Magical Dinner Dust, Breakfast Sprinkles and Bountiful Bone Broth,” adds Jay. “The bone broth helps rehydrate freeze dried proteins, improve palatability and ultimately makes the food even more enticing for pets.”
Facilities have grown significantly since the company’s early days, increasing in size from a 10,000-square-foot plant to a 355,000-square-foot manufacturing complex today in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. “Our plant is SQF Level 2 certified, and we also have a certification from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) for international export,” explains Jay. “We take food safety and employee safety very seriously; we’re always looking to improve and upgrade our best-in-class processes. As an example, in 2007, Stella & Chewy’s was one of the first in the industry to adopt high-pressure pasteurization (HPP) which eliminates pathogens and helps ensure food safety. We religiously test every batch before it is re-leased to customers; our safety standards and extensive product testing really set us apart.”
Premium products
With respect to product development, the company’s main focus is on furthering the relationships be-tween pet parent and pet, whether the goal is tackling fussy eating, maximizing nutrient intake or improving hydration, this requires first gathering feedback directly from pet owners. “Once we have identified an
unfulfilled need that pet parents have, and created a safe product to meet that need, it must then taste great to pets and be clearly preferred to alternatives,” adds Jay. “When a product clears all those hurdles, it’s ready for market. To help draw in new consumers and build trial for our products we’ve recently launched trial sizes for our freeze-dried meal mixers and, most recently, our Dinner Dust. We’re also considering trial-sized versions of our freeze-dried dinner patties.”
Supplier partnerships are also key for the pioneering pet food business – a notable example is the collaboration with North Freeze Dry, a joint venture between Anchor Ingredients and Barrett Pet Food in Little Falls, Minnesota. “Barrett has been a long-term partner who handles a majority of our premium kibble production,” Jay highlights. “The kibble includes either a freeze-dried raw coating or small freeze-dried raw protein inclusions. Initially, we were producing freeze-dried material in Wisconsin and shipping it to Barrett for inclusion in the kibble production process, but that was inefficient and disrupted our ingredient custody chain. North Freeze Dry built a plant across the street from Barrett’s kibble plant that now produces the freeze-dried protein on-site, following the same safety and quality standards we do.
“We are currently experimenting with a new freeze-dried product concept that combines freeze dried protein with fresh fruit and vegetable ingredients, tapping into the ‘humanization’ trend in pet food. The challenge is technical,” Jay discloses. “We’re working on embedding the fruits and vegetable within the protein so they stay integrated. If the inclusions fall out and end up at the bottom of the bag, pets won’t eat them. Getting that right is key to delivering a high-value premium product.”
For the first 15 years, products were only available through independent pet retail stores. However, be-tween 2014 and 2016, Stella & Chewy’s expanded into e-commerce via Amazon and Chewy.com. “In 2023, we entered Petco, and in 2025 we made the strategic decision to expand retail distribution beyond the pet specialty channel,” Jay elaborates. “Consumer behavior is shifting – people no longer shop exclusively at pet specialty stores. Premium pet products are now sold in larger grocery stores and in the mass channel. Our goal is to make our superior nutrition products available wherever pet parents shop for their pet’s food. We’ve recently expanded pet store distribution to include PetSmart, entered the grocery channel, partnered with Target in the mass channel and we continue to grow rapidly online. Of course, we still value and support our neighborhood pet store roots, but serving the pet and pet parent comes first, which means being omnichannel.”
Love at first bite
As it stays true to its heritage and culture, the business remains committed to food and employee safety while finding smarter ways to run operations and reinvest in growth. “We’re continuously looking for ways to improve operational efficiency,” states Jay. “We’re also pushing forward with new freeze-dried innovations in concert with our co-pack partners, and continuing to expand our retail footprint, adding a number of significant new retail partners over the last year. The business currently has about two percent house-hold penetration in the US, and I’d like to at least double that in the next three to five years, with a long-term goal of having Stella & Chewy’s in ten percent of US households. I think that is a reasonable aspiration – FreshPet, the pioneer in bringing better pet food to the grocery store, has already surpassed that level.”
Jay concludes: “What makes Stella & Chewy’s different from other pet food brands is our unwavering focus on the relationship between pet parent and pet. From the very beginning of our story, Marie was willing to do whatever it took to help Chewy. Our products reflect the same intersection of love, connection and pet nutrition. That combination is what makes us unique.”