Trupanion’s pet food startup has disappeared without any SEC disclosures or public statements.
Trupanion’s pet food venture Landspath involved millions of dollars in start-up costs (insiders estimate total amount spent is north of $15 million), and the engagement of full-time senior staff, including company president Margi Tooth.
A key building block of Trupanion’s five-year plan which CEO Rawlings unveiled in April 2021, the pet food venture was ambitious from the start. Mr. Rawlings was passionate about it, so much so that when we began reporting, he initially had me bring my many questions only to him until we were going in circles and I realized I needed to interview at least a dozen or so more people. To Trupanion’s and Rawlings’ credit, when I reached out to people across the Trupanion universe during the course of 2021, almost always without Rawlings or his PR person knowing about it beforehand, I was met with a level of transparency and cooperation rarely found in large corporations. It was intoxicating.
That was summer/fall 2021.
Fast forward to July 2023:
The Canine Review did not receive responses to repeated text messages and email inquiries to Rawlings, President Tooth, or any member of Trupanion’s Board of Directors when asked to confirm that Trupanion had ended its joint venture with Rayne Clinical Nutrition, Inc. There have been no SEC filings pertaining Rayne in at least the past two years. Our queries also sought confirmation that Landspath (the pet food venture) was now on hold for all intents and purposes.
Only Trupanion’s partner, Rayne Nutrition founder and CEO John Phelps, would respond, writing in a text message:
“I am not sure on the latest but the project leader will know and be able to help – Michael Retter at Trupanion. He took over the project a while ago.”
Trupanion’s Michael Retter has also not returned repeated requests seeking comment. And whether Trupanion continues to own a piece of Rayne or Landspath is anyone’s guess.
Last month, the food venture website suddenly went dark without explanation or comment. Tooth and Rawlings have declined our repeated requests seeking comment on where things stand with Landspath, including its website.
So, all that we know for sure is that the website disappeared – leaving only a landing page in its place – about 24 hours after we began pressing Rawlings and Ms. Tooth for an update.
Trupanion pulls down pet food venture Landspath website following TCR inquiry