Cotecnica reinforces its international commitment with the acquisition of the Italian Life Pet Care

BELLPUIGThe agri-food cooperative Cotecnica has taken a new step in its international expansion strategy with the acquisition of Life Pet Care, an Italian company specializing in pet food and linked to the Life Natural brand. The operation allows the Bellpuig-based company to strengthen its presence in one of the sector's main European markets and expand its growth possibilities through an already consolidated commercial structure.

Life Pet Care closed the 2025 financial year with a turnover exceeding 41 million euros, according to available business data, and develops most of its activity in the Italian market. The company also has a commercial presence in other countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Poland, Greece, and Latvia. For Cotecnica, the operation therefore represents a direct access route to Italy and a commercial network that can contribute to the expansion of its brands and products.

The entry into the Italian market occurs, moreover, in a context of sustained growth in the pet-related business. According to the official Italian report Rapporto Assalco-Zoomark 2026, the entire Italian market for pet food and pet care reached 5,300 million euros in 2025, 2.5% more than the previous year. Dog and cat food alone accounted for 4,200 million euros, with increases in both value and volume.

The same data shows that more than half of Italian households live with at least one pet. Specifically, the proportion reaches 54.5%, while the estimated number of pets in the country stands at 53.6 million. Dogs and cats together exceed 20 million individuals.

In this scenario, Cotecnica enters the operation after consolidating a growth trajectory. The cooperative closed 2025 with a turnover of169.2 million euros, 7% more than the previous year. The company has positioned the pet food business, mainly structured around the Ownat brand, as one of the main drivers of its activity and its international projection.

The acquisition of Life Pet Care is thus part of an internationalization policy that seeks to expand Cotecnica's presence beyond the domestic market. The cooperative already has international commercial activity and has strengthened its participation in the main professional meetings of the sector in recent years, with the aim of opening new markets and consolidating existing ones.

One of the outstanding elements of the operation is that Cotecnica plans to continue the Italian company's business project. Specifically, it will maintain the activity of Life Pet Care, its Life Natural brand structure, and the entire workforce. In this way, the acquisition will not entail the disappearance of the Italian firm's commercial identity, but rather its incorporation into the growth project of the Lleida cooperative.

For the general director of Cotecnica, David Sánchez, the purchase directly responds to the objectives defined in the company's strategic plan. As he points out, the incorporation of Life Pet Care allows for a leap in scale in Europe and the addition of a complementary brand, while also facilitating access to a commercial network considered strategic for continuing to develop the business model based on quality and natural nutrition.

From animal nutrition to the pet business

Cotecnica is an agri-food cooperative made up of ten cooperatives from Catalonia, Aragon, and Castile and León. Its activity began in 1982 with the manufacture of correctors and vitamin-mineral premixes for animal feed, as well as milk replacers and veterinary products. In 1991, it incorporated the division dedicated to pet food, which over time has become one of the company's strategic areas.

The cooperative currently has 190 employees and a wide portfolio of products within the pet food division. The Ownat brand concentrates a large part of this activity and is positioned in the segment of natural food for dogs and cats. The manufacture of Ownat's dry food is carried out at the plant that Cotecnica has in Bellpuig, where its recipes are also developed with the participation of a team of nutritionists and veterinarians.

Cotecnica's business model also maintains, at the same time, a close link with the cooperative's original agri-food sector. The company advocates for the use of local ingredients and collaboration with local suppliers as elements integrated into its value proposition.

With the incorporation of Life Pet Care, Cotecnica now expands its business dimension in a market with growing demand and with an increasingly important weight of specialized channels and online sales. In Italy, specialized stores, chains, and pet shop establishments in large retail outlets jointly concentrate a significant portion of sales, while e-commerce already accounts for 11.5% of the pet food market.

The acquisition of Life Pet Care thus reinforces Cotecnica's strategy of growing through internationalization and increasing the weight of the pet business within the group. For the Bellpuig cooperative, the operation represents a new platform to consolidate its European presence and continue developing its brands in a sector in full transformation.