About the Brand
About
Identity Pet Nutrition is an independent, family-owned pet food company founded in Colorado by brothers Jeremy and Trevar Petersen with a simple belief: pets deserve better food. Identity creates premium, human-grade, high-meat foods for dogs and cats using minimally processed, single-protein recipes and an uncompromising commitment to real meat, clean ingredients, responsible sourcing, and exceptional ingredient integrity.
Rather than formulate around cost or conventional industry practices, Identity puts the food first. Its portfolio of canned wet foods, fresh frozen gently cooked foods, and fresh snacks is made in small batches using thoughtfully sourced ingredients from trusted farmers, ranchers, and fisheries. Identity emphasizes substantial amounts of clearly identified animal protein, transparent recipes, and nutrition pet parents can understand and trust. Its foods are made in Canada using carefully selected ingredients that reflect the company’s rigorous sourcing standards, including free-range and grass-fed animal proteins and ingredients produced without added hormones or antibiotics, GMOs, or glyphosate.
Still 100% independently owned, Identity has no outside investors or private-equity ownership, giving its founders the freedom to make decisions based on what they believe is best for pets rather than short-term financial returns. That independence, combined with a deeply personal commitment to animals, is helping Identity build one of the most personable, transparent, and distinctive brands in premium pet nutrition.
Founding Story
Identity Pet Nutrition was born from three generations of experience in agriculture and pet food—and from the belief that the industry could do better. Brothers Jeremy and Trevar Petersen grew up in Weld County, Colorado, surrounded by farming, ranching, entrepreneurship, and the pet food business. Their grandfather built businesses in agricultural seed and pet food, and their family helped shape Jeremy and Trevar’s understanding of where food comes from, how animals are raised, and the importance of relationships with the people behind the ingredients.
Before Identity, Jeremy and Trevar helped build another pet food company from the ground up. The experience gave the brothers an inside look at nearly every part of the industry—from formulation and manufacturing to distribution and retail—but it also taught them what they wanted to do differently. When that company ultimately entered bankruptcy and Jeremy and Trevar were unsuccessful in acquiring it, they made the decision to start again. Rather than walk away from pet food, they invested their life savings and everything they had learned into building the company they believed should exist.
In 2018, they founded Identity Pet Nutrition around a fundamentally different approach: put the food first. They set out to create human-grade, high-meat foods made with clearly identified animal proteins, responsible sourcing, minimal processing, and greater supply-chain transparency. Identity pioneered a high-meat approach to pet nutrition built around animal protein, challenging an industry where grains, peas, legumes, potatoes, and sweet potatoes are widely used to build formulas and reduce reliance on more costly animal ingredients.
Their experience also led them away from traditional extruded kibble, which relies heavily on starch for processing and structure, and toward canned and gently cooked foods. These formats allowed them to deliver the high-meat nutrition, ingredient quality, palatability, and food-safety standards they wanted for their own pets. Still independently owned and operated today, Identity reflects the same principle that inspired its creation: make decisions based on what is best for pets, not what is easiest or most profitable to produce.
Signature Products
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95% Free-Range Heritage Turkey & Turkey Broth Pâté Wet Cat Food
Identity Pet Nutrition
Highly active
Team & Experts
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Born and raised in rural Weld County Colorado, Jeremy has the land’s richness in his character and outlook. He grew up learning and appreciating absolutely everything that was agriculture-related. Jeremy now lives in Denver, not that far from his roots. He is a graduate of the International Baccalaureate High School Program and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor with a degree in business and entrepreneurship. Jeremy has strong opinions about the future of small business in the USA, having co-founded and run three pet food companies before he was thirty (30).
He sees the red tape that hampers innovation and industry and he tries to do something about it. He has made solid proposals to state and federal governments to fund entrepreneurial high schoolers via stipends to attend community college while building their businesses and to directly provide business loans to those who have degrees already but otherwise cannot afford to finance a good idea without investors. Jeremy is also passionate about the skills gap in this country, and says not everyone has to get a BA or MBA. He challenges limited thinking and outdated approaches and says business is a solution for almost every problem out there – as long as it’s approached with a 360-degree view of the impacts of every decision made.
Jeremy views himself as a disruptor creating consumer packaged goods not based merely on marketing trends but education and actual consumer demand for uncompromising high-quality ingredients, transparency and honest formulations. Using his deep knowledge and expertise of the pet industry (2015 Pet Age 40 under 40 Award Recipient), he’s on a journey for innovation and change. His dream is to create the first closed-loop pet food company at Identity Pet Nutrition.
Jeremy’s heroes are his grandfather, Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Phil Knight, Deion Sanders and John Mackey – all for their entrepreneurial thinking and enduring success.
His hobbies are investing (he would have been an investment banker had he not found the pet food industry) and he is a big basketball and football fan (Go Blue!). He enjoys reading and is constantly learning. Jeremy is an avid traveler (he holds a private pilot license) and a bit of a foodie – he cooks at home and also enjoys going out to local restaurants or hitting the food scene in new places he discovers on his travels. Maybe that epicureanism matches up with his entrepreneurialism to make for a one-of-a-kind pet food guru!
Jeremy’s main areas of focus at Identity Pet Nutrition are finance & accounting, formulation, branding, design, customer care, sales and marketing. He is a loving father to a Shih Tzu named Zoey.
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Trevar attended an International Baccalaureate High School and
then went on to get a degree in business from the University of Colorado at Boulder Leeds School of Business. He focuses at Identity Pet Nutrition on numbers and efficiencies. He especially likes to dig into the data on competitors and find the errors in their ways. Where have there been recalls, and why? What corners are being cut in price-driven formulations? While Trevar is knee-deep into financials and analysis, he also has a big heart for pets. They are the real bottom line.He is most proud of this being his third pet food company that
he helped start from scratch - and his small company’s adventures in big business. He likes being the David against many Goliaths. He points to the innovations Identity Pet Nutrition has made and continues to make - whether that’s in exotic protein formulations or new hybrid distribution models that work for both buyers and distributors.Trevar’s hobbies are being a sports fan to the max – and hanging with the family out in the country – and their pups!
Press Coverage
YOUTUBE
May 2, 2026
Mother’s day Gift Guide TV Segment on Spectrum News
ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT
Mar 12, 2025
ABC World News Tonight - March 13, 2025 Tariffs
Identity Pet Nutrition Founder & CEO Jeremy Petersen was featured on ABC World News Tonight with David Muir discussing how proposed tariffs on Canadian imports could impact independent American businesses, increase operating costs, and ultimately raise prices for consumers.
NEXTPERT NEWS
Mar 11, 2025
Good Morning America (feature at 6:20 mark) Tariffs
Perspective on the impact of tariffs on independent American businesses with coverage across television, print, and digital outlets.
THE COLORADO SUN
Mar 4, 2025
Trump’s tariffs are estimated to cost Colorado $1.4 billion a year. Consumers could feel the pain soon.
Perspective on the impact of tariffs on independent American businesses with coverage across television, print, and digital outlets.
THE COLORADO SUN
Mar 4, 2025
Trump’s tariffs are estimated to cost Colorado $1.4 billion a year. Consumers could feel the pain soon.
Perspective on the impact of tariffs on independent American businesses with coverage across television, print, and digital outlets.
DENVER7
Mar 3, 2025
Colorado business owners brace for price hikes as tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China go into effect
Perspective on the impact of tariffs on independent American businesses with coverage across television, print, and digital outlets.
9NEWS
Mar 3, 2025
'It's just not a good situation': Colorado businesses react to tariffs
Perspective on the impact of tariffs on independent American businesses with coverage across television, print, and digital outlets.
FOX 31 - DENVER
Mar 3, 2025
Unsuspecting items that could be impacted by tariffs
Perspective on the impact of tariffs on independent American businesses with coverage across television, print, and digital outlets.
FOX 31 - DENVER
Mar 3, 2025
Unsuspecting items that could be impacted by tariffs
Perspective on the impact of tariffs on independent American businesses with coverage across television, print, and digital outlets.
THE DENVER GAZETTE
Mar 3, 2025
Trump tariffs could quadruple what Colorado already pays for imports, report says
Perspective on the impact of tariffs on independent American businesses with coverage across television, print, and digital outlets.
PETFOOD INDUSTRY
Feb 6, 2024
Identity Pet Nutrition: Going beyond canned pet food
A feature on Identity Pet Nutrition in Pet Food Industry Magazine.
CBS 4 COLORADO
Town Hall Event In Denver Held To Discuss Impacts of U.S. tariffs
Perspective on the impact of tariffs on independent American businesses with coverage across television, print, and digital outlets.
THE DENVER POST
Colorado business owners, industry leaders fret over fallout from tariffs
Perspective on the impact of tariffs on independent American businesses with coverage across television, print, and digital outlets.
NEXTPERT NEWS
Colorado business leaders react to SCOTUS decision on tariffs
Perspective on the impact of tariffs on independent American businesses with coverage across television, print, and digital outlets.
NEXTPERT NEWS
Colorado business leaders react to SCOTUS decision on tariffs
Perspective on the impact of tariffs on independent American businesses with coverage across television, print, and digital outlets.
Locations
Windsor, CO
9217 Eastman Park Drive, Windsor
Greeley, CO
3001 23rd Ave, Greeley
Asset Library
Editorial-ready assets. All images cleared for press use with credit.
Press Contact
JP
Primary press contact
Jeremy J. Petersen
Founder, President & CEO
- jeremy@identitypet.com
- Replies within 24 hours