Petco pivoted to health and wellness.

Petco is a lesson in repositioning a legacy retailer around values. It traces to 1965, when it began as “UPCO,” a mail-order veterinary and pet-supplies business in California; it opened its first retail store in 1976 and was renamed “Petco” in 1979. For decades it was one of the two big US pet-store chains (alongside PetSmart). Then, in October 2020, it rebranded as the “Petco Health and Wellness Company,” reframing a 55-year business around pet health rather than just supplies. (Honest caveats: no official brand hex or wordmark typeface is published, so the colours and type here are approximate.)

That pivot was backed by real, documented decisions. In November 2018, Petco announced it would stop selling dog and cat food and treats containing artificial colours, flavours and preservatives (40+ ingredients) — becoming the first national pet-specialty retailer to do so — completed by May 2019. In 2020 it also ended the sale of electronic “shock” collars (its #StopTheShock campaign). And like its rival, Petco does not sell dogs or cats; instead it runs an adoption model through Petco Love (founded 1999 as the Petco Foundation, renamed Petco Love in 2021), which reports more than 7 million pet adoptions. Values, made concrete.

On ownership and identity: Petco is publicly traded under one of retail’s most memorable tickers — NASDAQ: “WOOF” — after a January 2021 re-IPO (it had been taken private by CVC Capital Partners and the Canada Pension Plan in 2016). One design note worth getting right: the current logo is a single navy-blue wordmark. The classic red-and-teal mark with the “Red Ruff” dog and “Blue Mews” cat mascots was retired in the 2020 redesign (by Lippincott), which dropped the mascots for a cleaner, health-forward navy identity. A pet brand that led with its values.

Petco lives in navy blue. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

Petco’s current palette centres on a deep navy blue — calm, trustworthy and health-forward — a deliberate shift from the brighter red-and-teal of its older, mascot-led logo. The navy reads as dependable, caring and a touch premium, matching a brand that repositioned around pet health and wellness rather than just cheap supplies. Lighter blues and the legacy teal remain in the wider brand world, but the anchor is now a clean, confident navy. It’s a mature, trustworthy scheme for a values-first pet company. The honest caveat: Petco publishes no first-party brand hex — the navy here (community-cited around #001952) is an observed approximation, not a confirmed official spec.

The lesson is let the palette signal the repositioning. Petco’s move to navy expresses its shift from a supplies store to a health-and-wellness brand. For designers, it’s a reminder that a colour change can visibly reset what a brand stands for. The takeaways: use colour to signal a strategic reposition (navy for health/trust); retire elements that no longer fit (the old mascots and red/teal); and treat specific hexes as approximate when no official spec is published.

The wordmark is a rounded sans — friendly and caring.

Petco’s rounded, lowercase sans wordmark — now in navy — is friendly and caring. The soft, rounded letters feel warm and approachable, matching a brand about loving pet care, while the navy keeps it trustworthy and health-forward rather than playful-cheap. The 2020 redesign traded the busy mascot logo for this cleaner, more grown-up mark, signalling the shift to a wellness company. It reads as dependable and kind — exactly the caring, we-take-pet-health-seriously personality Petco now wants. (Because the exact face is custom and undocumented, the honest description is “a rounded sans,” not a named font.) The type behaves like the brand: friendly, caring and trustworthy.

Petco backed a new identity with real change.

Petco is a lesson in backing a repositioning with real decisions, not just a new logo. Rebranding to a “health and wellness company” could have been empty — but Petco made it credible by removing artificial ingredients, ending shock-collar sales, and leaning into adoption through Petco Love. Those concrete moves gave the new navy identity substance, so the design change reflected a genuine change in what the company does. It’s a reminder that a reposition only works when the actions match the aesthetics: the values move made the brand refresh believable.

For designers and brand-builders, Petco offers a clear takeaway: a repositioning must be backed by real action to be credible. The lessons: pair a visual reset with substantive change (the navy refresh plus no-artificial-ingredients and #StopTheShock); retire outdated brand elements decisively (the mascots and red/teal); and let a cause (adoption via Petco Love) give the brand meaning. It’s also a reminder to keep the facts precise — Petco began as UPCO in 1965 (renamed Petco 1979), rebranded to a health-and-wellness company in 2020 with a navy-only wordmark, stopped selling artificial-ingredient pet food and shock collars, runs an adoption model (7M+ adoptions), and trades as NASDAQ: WOOF. Petco made its reposition real — proof that actions must match a brand refresh.

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