Pets at Home

Overview

Pets at Home is the UK’s largest pet supplies retailer, but they also operate a significant veterinary services business. Most of their veterinary practices are co-located with retail stores under the Vets4Pets or Companion Care brands.

Business Model

The Pets at Home model is notable for its vertical integration:

• Retail stores selling pet food, supplies, and accessories
• Veterinary practices (Vets4Pets/Companion Care) often inside or next to stores
• Grooming services (Groom Room)
• Insurance services (Bought By Many partnership)

This creates potential conflicts of interest - for example, product recommendations from vets that benefit the parent company.

Joint Venture Model

Most Vets4Pets and Companion Care practices are run as joint venture partnerships (JVPs), not as directly-managed corporate branches. This is an important nuance for pet owners:

• Each practice is run by a local Joint Venture Partner — a vet, nurse or practice manager — who co-owns the practice business alongside Pets at Home.
• The local partner sets their own prices, products and services, so costs and offerings vary from branch to branch rather than being fixed centrally.
• Day-to-day clinical and operational decisions are made locally.
• Partners earn 100% of their practice’s profits once start-up business loans are repaid, and retain the value of the practice when they sell.
• In return, Pets at Home provides the premises (often inside or next to a store), the brand, IT systems and back-office support, funded by a share of each practice’s turnover.

This means a Vets4Pets is best understood as locally owned and run, but corporately backed — more autonomous than a fully company-managed chain, but not the same as a wholly independent practice, since Pets at Home Group plc still co-owns each practice and earns from it. The exact ownership split and how established a partnership is will differ between branches.

Source: Vets for Pets — practice ownership.

Regulatory Matters

Pets at Home’s veterinary businesses were included in the CMA’s market investigation into veterinary services, which concluded in March 2026 with a package of remedies covering ownership disclosure and pricing transparency.

In July 2026 the government accepted all of the CMA’s recommendations, committing to replace the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 with new legislation that will license veterinary businesses and introduce a binding consumer redress scheme, expected to be delivered through a new veterinary ombudsman.

What Pet Owners Should Know

• Vets4Pets and Companion Care practices are mostly locally-owned joint ventures: the vet running your practice usually has a real ownership stake and sets their own prices.
• Because pricing is set locally, it’s worth comparing nearby Vets4Pets branches rather than assuming a single chain-wide price.
• These practices are still part of a retail business with interests in selling pet products, and Pets at Home Group plc co-owns each practice and earns a share of turnover.
• Co-location with retail can be convenient but may create commercial pressures.