If you already stock raw, you have done the hard part. The category is proven, your customers know what it is, and you are not explaining it from scratch any more. What tends to happen next is that it settles — a freezer that sells steadily, never badly, and never as well as the floor space would justify. That is almost always a merchandising problem rather than a demand problem, and it is a solvable one. The category is proven. The shelf is the bottleneck. A PETS+ Brain Squad survey of roughly 1,500 independent pet retailers and service providers, reported by PetfoodIndustry in April 2025, put numbers on something most independents recognise. Asked which they sold more of, 79% said frozen raw and 21% said gently cooked. But asked what share of their total food sales those formats made up, 39% said 15-30% and another 37% said 1-15%. Only 2% were above 60%. So: a category these shops believe in, sell more of than the alternative, and still run at a fraction of their food business. Worth saying plainly that this was a survey of retailers in the United States, not a UK study — but the shape of it will be familiar to anyone running a freezer in a British high-street shop. The same survey named the single biggest driver of sales as knowledgeable staff who feed fresh themselves, and asked suppliers for educational material to hand customers. Both of those are things you can act on this month. Where the freezer goes matters more than what is in it Position is the one merchandising decision you cannot fix with better signage later. A freezer against the back wall is a destination: it is found by people who already came in for it. A freezer in the main traffic path is a discovery: it is seen by everyone, including the customer who has fed the same kibble for six years and has never once asked you about raw. Those customers are where the growth is, and they will not walk to the back of the shop to find it. A few things that consistently help: Glass-door uprights sell better than chest freezers for the same stock, because the product is visible at standing height rather than requiring someone to lean in. Keep the ambient and freeze-dried lines beside the freezer, not in the dry food aisle. A customer browsing frozen is the customer most likely to try a shelf-stable version. Leave the top of the freezer clear. It attracts clutter, and clutter reads as "nothing new here". Signage that answers the question before it is asked Most of the questions that stop a raw sale are asked silently, by someone who then walks away. Good point-of-sale answers them without anyone having to approach the counter. The trade store carries 87 point-of-sale lines, and the useful thing about them is how specific they are. Among them: 19 posters, 14 freezer and window stickers, 7 signs and banners, and 4 leaflet packs. A few that earn their place: Freezer stickers — the only signage a customer reads at the exact moment of deciding. Separate stickers exist for the gently steamed, freeze-dried and DIBO ranges, so the door can say what is actually behind it. Window and door stickers — "Sold Here" on the window tells passing trade you stock the brand before they are even in the shop. Floor stickers and pavement signs — for routing people toward a freezer that is not in the main path. Leaflets — the direct answer to "consumers crave education". A leaflet goes home in a bag and gets read at the kitchen table, which is where the decision to switch actually gets made. Your team is the merchandising The survey finding worth taking most seriously is the one about staff. Not "staff who have been trained on the range" — staff who feed it themselves and talk about it unprompted. That is cheaper to build than it sounds. A member of staff who has fed a 50g topper to their own fussy dog can have a thirty-second conversation that no poster will ever have. It is worth putting a small amount of stock through your own team's hands deliberately, and worth asking them afterwards what their dog made of it, because that is the anecdote that sells the next one. Three answers everyone on the floor should have ready: "Do I have to defrost it?" Not for the ambient gently steamed or freeze-dried lines. That single sentence converts a large share of the people who have been put off raw. "Is it complete?" Know which of your lines are complete recipes and which are toppers or treats, and be able to point at the difference on the shelf. "Isn't it expensive?" Answer in meals rather than grams, and do the arithmetic with them at the counter rather than leaving them to guess. Time a push rather than drifting into one A category that is already working rarely improves on its own. It improves when something changes on the shop floor on a specific date. That is what the FSDU and counter deals are for — 17 of them on the store, including a gently steamed floor display including 120 x 395g units, a freeze-dried equivalent, and counter deals across the AniForte range. A free-standing unit arriving with its own stock is a reason to rearrange the section, brief the team and put a poster up, all in the same week. If the push is a freezer rather than a display, build the lead time into the plan: freezer units carry a minimum lead time of two weeks, payment is required before the unit is ordered, and the deals on the store include the opening stock alongside the unit. Day-to-day, you can select your own dispatch date at checkout, which is the day your order leaves us, and it will go out on a next-day delivery service. The minimum order is 5kg. The bottom line Raw does not usually need more believers in your shop. It needs a better position, a door that says what is behind it, a team with one good line each, and one deliberate push a quarter. None of that is expensive, and most of it is sitting in the point-of-sale range already. Stock the range Freezer and shelf signage Gently Steamed Freezer Sticker Freeze Dried Freezer Sticker DIBO Freezer Sticker Sold Here Window Sticker Floor Stickers Pavement Sign Posters and leaflets A3 Gently Steamed Poster A2 BodyScore Poster Customer Leaflet Fresh Bi-fold Leaflets Displays and freezers FSDU Deal — Gently Steamed FSDU Deal — Freeze Dried AniForte Floor Display Stand Freezer Deal — Single Upright Browse the full point-of-sale and merchandising ranges, the FSDU deals, or the freezer deals if you are adding capacity.
