Basil Palmer, Doug Wilkins and a freezer full of abattoir meat.

Forthglade began in Devon in 1971. The company says it was founded by Basil Palmer and Doug Wilkins, two men who earned their living visiting abattoirs and buying meat for the pharmaceutical industry, and Food Chain magazine gave the same two names in a March 2026 profile. According to the company’s own history, the pet food idea came from Palmer’s dog: finding little on sale that he wanted to feed it, he began freezing meat from the abattoir for it himself.

The move into pet food proper came a few years later. Forthglade says that in 1974 a chance encounter with a broken-down lorry led to its first sale of two tonnes of tripe for pets, and that its first product made specifically for animals was a 447g frozen block of raw tripe, sold to pet shops, kennels and breeders. The business stayed close to that trade for years: frozen raw food remained part of the range until 2015, the company says.

The next step was wet food. In 1989, Forthglade says, it launched Menu, a complementary wet range built around chicken or duck with minerals and a little water, together with its first complete range under the name Lifestage Complete. The company says the Menu recipe lives on in today’s Just 90% range. Through these decades Forthglade sold to cat as well as dog owners; the narrowing to dogs alone came later, with the change of ownership described below. The company describes its food as made “in the heart of Devon” from 1971 onwards.

A 2012 buyout, a new look and a factory built for the brand.

The modern Forthglade dates from 2012. The company says the business was then bought by “a handful of individuals,” and Food Chain named the buyers as Chris Brooking and Gerard Lovell, who went on to run it as joint managing directors. Their first visible change was the brand itself: Forthglade says it moved to “a new look & feel” in 2012 and made its recipes specific to dogs rather than to cats as well.

Three years later the range and the route to market changed. In 2015, the company says, it stopped its raw frozen range to concentrate on wet food and launched grain-free complete meals. A private equity investor joined the same year: the investor Piper listed its 2015 investment in Forthglade on its own website in May 2017. Late in 2015 Forthglade began selling directly to customers online for the first time, the company says, a channel Food Chain also dates to 2015.

Production moved in 2018, when Forthglade completed a new factory on the edge of Dartmoor National Park, which the company calls the first site designed specifically for it. Food Manufacture reported in July 2026 that the Okehampton business runs a production site making both wet and dry dog food, and that it has more recently added cold-pressed dry food, treats and supplements. In 2019, the company says, it partnered with the National Trust on the Trust’s Dogs Welcome project and produced a co-branded range, with purchases from it supporting the Trust’s work, and in 2021 it marked fifty years of trading. Food Chain reported that Forthglade gained B Corp certification in 2025.

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all British pet food names: Canagan, Lily’s Kitchen, Applaws, Harringtons, Forthglade, Burns and James Wellbeloved. Pet food brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from family firms that still carry a founder’s name to labels that now belong to much larger food groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a supermarket aisle to a vet’s counter or an online subscription.

A pet food brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single recipe than by a pack, a name and the story it tells about where it comes from, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the kitchen or town where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its food is actually made.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its food is made and how its packs have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

From two founders to private equity, and on to Assisi Pet Care.

Ownership has changed three times since the 2012 buyout. After Piper’s 2015 investment, Food Manufacture reported, Piper sold Forthglade to the European investor IK Partners in 2020. David Cox has led the company as chief executive since 2022, the same paper said.

The latest sale came in July 2026. Food Manufacture reported on 20 July 2026 that Assisi Pet Care had acquired Forthglade from IK Partners for an undisclosed sum, marking IK’s exit. Assisi, described in that report as London-based with manufacturing in the UK and Poland, is backed by the American private equity firm Wind Point Partners, which bought the group in October 2023. Its brands include Burns, the Welsh natural pet food company it bought in December 2023, along with Hollings, HiLife and Pet Munchies; the group also makes Maced, Yakers and NAW and sells to specialist pet, grocery and online retailers across Europe. Chris Melander, Assisi’s chief executive, called Forthglade an excellent fit for the group, and Cox said the partnership would give the business strategic support to grow faster. Assisi said it planned to invest in the brand’s next phase, and the paper noted that Forthglade had already expanded its production capacity in recent years. Forthglade continues to trade under its own name from Devon, selling through supermarkets, independent pet shops, its own website and online marketplaces, according to the same report.

For a design guide, Forthglade shows how a pet food brand can make an ingredient figure its headline — the Just 90% name leads with a number rather than an adjective — and how a 2012 rebrand turned a trade supplier of frozen tripe into a supermarket name without leaving Devon. Compare Burns Pet Nutrition, its Welsh sister brand under Assisi, and Butternut Box, the London fresh dog food subscription. For this guide we use Dartmoor green, gorse yellow and tor granite with a rounded sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Forthglade’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.