Nestlé has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Wamiz, the French digital media platform for pet owners. Wamiz is based in Paris.
Created in 2009 by two entrepreneurs Adrien Magdelaine and Adrien Ducousset, Wamiz has become in recent years, a digital media platform of reference for dog and cat enthusiasts.
Wamiz's advertising activity and all of its other activities will continue to operate independently. The organization of Wamiz remains unchanged. The two founders and their team of 16 employees will continue to manage the business with the same entrepreneurial spirit that has made the platform so successful. The terms of the transaction will not be disclosed.
Nestlé opens pet food factory in Chile
Nestlé has inaugurated a pet food factory in Teno, Chile. The factory will produce pet food for dogs and cats, meeting growing demand from pet owners in Chile.
Nestlé invested US$120 million (CHF 117 million) in the factory to ensure high standards of quality and food safety. The site will directly employ 154 people, more than 70 percent of whom come from neighboring areas and 40 percent of whom are less than 30 years of age. According to Nestlé, the plant will produce 65,000 tons of pet food. It will produce dry food under several brands including Dog Chow, Cat Chow, Doko, Gati and Purina Excellent, for local consumption and export markets in Latin America.
The facility is also designed to meet certain environmental standards. No waste goes to landfill, a natural gas boiler reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 23 percent, and 100 percent of energy comes from non-conventional renewable sources.
About Nestlé Purina PetCare
Though it now faces stiff competition for first place from Mars Pet Foods, Nestlé's 2015 acquisition of Merrick Backcountry is helping to drive growth in the premium market, according to the Petfood Industry Top Companies database. The company topped $12 billion in sales in 2016, a five percent increase for the year. Long a leader in the US market, Nestlé Purina also operates pet food factories in 19 countries and on every habitable continent. The company's lawsuit against Blue Buffalo, which Nestlé accused of false advertising in 2014, was settled in 2016 for $32 million. Nestlé Purina claims three headquarters globally: St. Louis, Missouri, USA, for its North American and Latin American operations; Lausanne, Switzerland, in Europe; and Sydney, Australia, covering Asia, Oceania and Africa. Its parent company Nestlé's world headquarters are in Vevey, Switzerland.
