Nulo's Olympic Bet Is Paying Off Where It Matters: Independent Retail

Nulo posted 8.1% sales growth over the latest 52-week period, outpacing every other brand in the top 15 pet specialty rankings across brick-and-mortar and e-commerce. The gains coincide with a sustained Olympic marketing investment that the Apax Partners-backed company is using not just for brand awareness but as a direct lever for independent retailer activation. For operators watching how premium brands drive velocity in specialty retail, the playbook here is worth studying.

What Happened

Nulo’s Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics campaign generated more than 46 million TV impressions, with spending the company said nearly matched its Paris 2024 Summer Olympics investment. The campaign ran across NBC broadcasts, stadium signage at the Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Louis, and out-of-home media.

The more operationally relevant piece: Nulo paired the national media spend with a retail promotions program that incentivized independent retailers to build off-shelf, Olympics-themed product displays. More than 2,500 retailers across the U.S. and Canada participated. That’s a meaningful activation footprint for a brand that distributes primarily through pet specialty rather than mass retail.

On the athlete side, Nulo’s “Fuel Incredible” roster of Olympic endorsers — athletes who own and feed Nulo to their pets — collected six gold medals at Milan Cortina 2026. The company also signed on as the official pet nutrition partner of Team Canada through 2028 and became the official pet food sponsor of U.S. Figure Skating.

Nielsen and Stackline data through February 28, 2026 show the results: 8.1% sales growth in the latest 52-week period, the highest among the top 15 pet specialty brands.

Why It Matters

The independent retail channel still responds to coordinated activation. The conventional wisdom in pet is that independent retail is declining against e-commerce and mass. Nulo’s results suggest that premium brands can still drive meaningful velocity in specialty when they pair national awareness campaigns with boots-on-the-ground retailer programs. The 2,500-store display activation is the kind of execution that turns ad impressions into shelf pulls.

This is a PE-backed brand executing a long-term playbook. Apax Partners acquired majority ownership of Nulo in 2021. The sustained Olympic investment across two consecutive Games cycles — Paris 2024 and Milan Cortina 2026 — signals that Apax is backing a multi-year brand-building strategy rather than the cost-cutting approach PE firms are often associated with in pet. For operators evaluating PE-owned brand partners, Nulo’s trajectory suggests Apax is playing for category leadership in premium pet specialty.

Athlete endorsements work differently in pet. Nulo’s athlete program isn’t a traditional celebrity endorsement. The athletes are pet owners endorsing a product they actually use. That authenticity carries more weight with pet parents than a standard sponsorship deal. For smaller brands evaluating marketing spend, the takeaway isn’t to sponsor the Olympics; it’s that pet-owner authenticity outperforms generic celebrity association.

What to Watch

Whether Nulo’s independent retail momentum holds through the rest of 2026 without a major sporting event to anchor campaigns around. The next activation opportunity is the LA 2028 Summer Olympics, which means the company needs to sustain retailer engagement through more conventional marketing for the next two years. Watch Nielsen data in Q3 and Q4 for any deceleration.

Also worth tracking: how other PE-backed pet brands respond. If Nulo’s Olympic playbook keeps delivering above-category growth, expect competitors to pursue similar high-visibility sponsorship strategies — which could drive up the cost of athlete partnerships across the industry.

Source: Company press release