Fressnapf Tiernahrungs GmbH is a German franchise company for pet food. With over 1400 stores and 8000 employees in 12 European countries it is the largest European pet product retailer.Press release (german)
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History

At 24 years of age, Torsten Toeller founded his first store for pet food and pet supplies in

Erkelenz Erkelenz (, ) is a town in the Rhineland in western Germany that lies southwest of Mönchengladbach on the northern edge of the Cologne Lowland, halfway between the Lower Rhine region and the Lower Meuse. It is a medium-sized town (over 44,000) ...

, Germany. Inspired by similar American pet superstores, he adapted the concept for the European market. From 1992 on, franchise stores were developed. In 1997, the first stores outside Germany were founded. Since then, the company has been awarded several prizes in Germany, ranking the franchise system among

Burger King Burger King Corporation (BK, stylized in all caps) is an American multinational chain store, chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. Headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the company was founded in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacks ...

and

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain. As of 2024, it is the second largest by number of locations in the world, behind only the Chinese ch ...

Franchises

Today, Fressnapf has stores in eleven European countries. The highest number of stores is in Germany (777), followed by

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

(90) and

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

(52). The company is also present in Switzerland, Belgium, France, Hungary, Romania, Denmark, Poland, Luxembourg, Ireland and Italy. In many non-German speaking countries, the chain is called Maxi Zoo, with the exception of Fressnapf in Hungary and Romania. Jumper in the Netherlands no longer has a partnership with Fressnapf. Fressnapf used to have stores in Italy under the MaxiZoo brand but in 2022 they fused their MaxiZoo italian branch (MaxiZoo S.p.a.) into their competitor Arcaplanet, which was bought by the

Cinven Cinven Limited is a global private equity firm founded in 1977, with offices in nine international locations in Guernsey, London, New York, Paris, Frankfurt, Milan, Luxembourg, Madrid, and Hong Kong that acquires Europe and United States–bas ...

investment fund earlier. The merging left Arcaplanet as the only surviving brand, with Fressnapf being a minority shareholder of the Arcaplanet chain, while Cinven held the majority of shares. In 2024 Fressnapf bought all shares from Cinven and became the sole owner of the Arcaplanet brand.

References

External links

fressnapf.com
Franchises Retail companies established in 1990 Retail companies of Germany Companies based in North Rhine-Westphalia Krefeld {{Pet stores