LAROY GROUP

How do you evaluate the importance of B2B trade shows like Zoomark in your industry?

"Our participation in international trade shows like Zoomark is essential for several reasons. These events provide us with a unique opportunity to connect with suppliers, manufacturers, and potential business partners from around the world. They are among the few occasions where we can engage with our partners in person and present both our established product range and latest innovations in a live setting to existing clients and new customers.

As Laroy Group, we are committed to becoming one of the world’s leading producers and suppliers of high-quality pet products. Exhibiting at such events strengthens our position as a reliable industry partner and enhances our brand recognition. As a ‘House of Brands’, it is crucial for us to showcase our diverse portfolio and reinforce our presence in the international pet market."

Could you briefly share your company’s history and what sets you apart in the pet industry?

“The foundations of Laroy group were laid by Carlos Laroy in 1962. The story began with a grocery business and an operation distributing grain and seeds in East and West Flanders. Laroy Group is a family business and has a strong focus on rock-solid long-term collaborations with colleagues, partners and others. Laroy Group made strong expansions over the years and grew as an international multi brand player with a diverse portfolio of own brands in food and accessories for every pet. Laroy Group also has their own Dutch design team and 2 manufacturing facilities: Cédé in Belgium and Witte Molen in the Netherlands.”

How are you addressing the growing demand for premium, sustainable, or personalised pet products?

“We will focus on and invest in value-added brands, placing a stronger emphasis on our ‘house of brands’ strategy. To support this, we will focus to enlarge our successful brands by developing new products and expand our distribution points. We are developing a comprehensive brand bible that clearly presents each brand and highlights their unique selling points (USPs). This will enable us to effectively communicate to our clients why they should choose our brands.

Our ‘Horizon 2030’ project is dedicated to building a robust ‘house of brands’ and shaping a clear vision for our future product assortment, ensuring long-term growth and success.”

Which key international markets are you targeting for 2025, and what strategies are you employing to enter them?

“Export is a rapidly growing market for Laroy Group. We have already established a strong export presence to over 80 countries. In 2024, we expanded our team by hiring a new Export Account Manager for Latin America. Additionally, we participated in international trade fairs, including Pet Fair China and Pet Fair South Asia.

We successfully entered new markets, forming partnerships with retail chains in countries such as Spain, New Zealand, Hong Kong, the UK, Scandinavia, and South East Korea.

Looking ahead to 2025, we plan to further strengthen our export efforts by hiring another Export Account Manager, participating in five international professional fairs, and focusing on expanding our presence in South America, Australia, and Asia.”

What tools or technologies are you using to improve operational efficiency and optimise international order management?

“Due to our strong growth, our previous warehouse reached its limitations. We developed new workflows that allow us to pick and stack larger items, such as bagged goods, in a single operation. Our employees no longer need to restack goods during consolidation.

We are continuously looking for ways to further improve our picking processes. Segmentation is the key to achieving this: the better we allocate our products based on their lifecycle and sales volumes, the more efficient our operations become. We implement Six Sigma projects to continuously refine our picking strategy.

The logistics team evaluates the warehouse processes by measuring the number of pick lines per hour, among other metrics. The warehouse project enabled us to optimize several aspects of our WMS system, allowing us to increase the number of pick lines per hour by up to twenty percent.

For cluster picking of smaller items, we designed custom carts tailored to the warehouse layout.”