Reimagine customer experience to drive pet food growth

Ryan Estis told pet food industry professionals that the era of steady, predictable category growth is over — and that standing out will require a fundamental shift in how companies think about customers, culture and innovation.

Estis presented "The art of standing out: Leveraging remarkable experiences and experimentation to create brand evangelism" as the Wednesday Eye-Opener Session at Petfood Forum 2026, on April 29 in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.

A bestselling author, former Fortune 500 chief revenue officer and globally recognized leadership expert, Estis opened with a direct challenge to attendees: the pet industry can no longer count on rising tides. 

"Pet owner expectations reflect human lifestyle trends, not traditional pet aisles," he said, framing the category's transformation around personalization, AI-enabled automation and a rapidly evolving consumer experience economy.

Winning moments of truth

Estis anchored much of his message in a story about a Starbucks barista named Lily Olson, a shift supervisor at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport's Terminal D, who he described as a master of human-centered connection. When asked her secret, Olson told him she wasn't serving coffee — she was "pouring happiness into people's lives."

The story, Estis said, illustrates a core principle: "Instead of focusing on how to be successful, focus on how to be helpful," he said. "Leadership — and in some respects life — can be an act of service."

He drew a direct line from that philosophy to competitive strategy, using Starbucks' broader approach as a model. Consumers, he said, don't make purchasing decisions on price alone. 

"They default to price in the absence of value, real and perceived, and of quality experience — and that's on us." Starbucks, he argued, understood it couldn't win in a commoditized coffee category, so it chose to elevate instead.

That same imperative, he said, now faces pet food manufacturers.

Ryan Estis urged pet food professionals at Petfood Forum 2026 to put customers at the center of every business decision — and reminded them that in an era of rising expectations and rapid change, the future of growth is still human.Lisa CleaverFrom 'know it all' to 'learn it all'

Estis cited Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's early tenure as a model for organizational reinvention, noting that when Nadella took over in 2014, he declared the company would shift from being a "know it all" to a "learn it all" organization. 

"Success breeds complacency," Estis said, echoing Nadella's framing. "We tend to want to hold on to the way we've done things — the things that have worked — which don't create the future."

He also pointed to Google research identifying psychological safety as the top characteristic of high-performing teams, arguing that empathy, often dismissed as a soft skill, is actually the catalyst for innovation. 

"Innovation is about meeting the unmet, unarticulated needs of customers," he said, attributing the definition to Nadella. "What's the source of it? You could say it's design thinking, but design thinking is empathy."

Disrupt yourself first

Estis introduced the concept of the "idea jam, a structured but rule-free brainstorming exercise he uses with his own company, and illustrated its power through the story of the Savannah Bananas, a baseball entertainment franchise that reinvented the fan experience by asking a simple question: what is better for the consumer?

Savannah Bananas founder Jesse Cole, Estis said, writes 10 ideas every morning to disrupt or improve his business, and then the team commits to executing at least one at their next game. 

"That rapid pace of iteration is what really exploded their results," Estis said. "And by the way, they make mistakes. If you're not making mistakes, you're not an innovative business."

The Bananas eventually created an entirely new game format — Banana Ball — with simplified rules designed around fan enjoyment. The result: sellouts at major league stadiums faster than the professional teams that play there, and a waiting list of 2 million fans.

The lesson for pet food professionals, Estis said, is straightforward: "What could you test? What could you experiment? What could you iterate to deliver a future that your customer hasn't even imagined?"

The 8:01 a.m. moment

Estis closed with what he called the most important minute of the conference: 8:01 a.m. Monday morning, when attendees return to their businesses.

He shared a personal story about running a grueling half marathon with his brother Chad, and the race organizers' practice of asking runners to dedicate the race to someone other than themselves. At the halfway mark — when most people quit — runners were asked to focus on who they were running for. "Something changes inside you," Estis said. "Your resolve. A switch goes off."

The principle, he argued, applies directly to professional life. "Don't focus on the finish line. Take your next three steps — and always hold the answer to this question close to your heart: Who am I running for?"

He urged attendees not to leave the conference with good intentions alone. "The future of growth is human," he said. "More than education, more than experience, more than training, a person’s level of resilience will determine who succeeds and who fails. That’s true in the cancer ward, it’s true in the Olympics, and its true in the boardroom."