The CMA’s Blind Spot: When pet food giants own vet chains (#412)

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) released its long-awaited report this week (15 October 2025) on the UK veterinary industry.

The report calls for price transparency, ownership disclosure, and fairer access to prescription medicines.

The findings make strong headlines: Vets must publish prices, Corporate ownership under scrutiny, Consumers could save hundreds.

But amid the flurry of attention to pricing and transparency, one issue slipped through the cracks:

The growing role of pet food companies in owning veterinary practices.

It’s an overlap that raises important questions about independence, influence, and trust.

When your vet’s parent company also sells dog food

One of the UK’s largest veterinary groups, Linnaeus, is owned by Mars Petcare, the same conglomerate behind household brands like Royal Canin, Pedigree, and Whiskas.

This creates an extraordinary intersection of interests: the same global corporation now operates across two key dimensions of pet care. Namely, veterinary advice and pet nutrition sales. That link, while legal, challenges traditional boundaries of clinical independence.

It’s not hard to imagine the potential for subtle influence: preferred nutrition lines, exclusive stocking arrangements, staff incentives, or even unconscious bias in dietary recommendations.

Yet, the CMA’s provisional decision makes no explicit reference to pet food companies entering the veterinary market via corporate ownership. Its focus is squarely on vet services, pricing, and prescription medicines, not on how conglomerates may leverage those veterinary platforms to advance their food brands.

Why this omission matters

At first glance, the issue may seem peripheral. After all, vets have recommended commercial diets for decades.

But corporate ownership changes the stakes dramatically.

When a practice is owned by a pet-food giant, the chain of accountability blurs. The same corporate parent controls both the diagnosis (through the clinic) and the prescription (through its branded diet). That’s a vertical integration model familiar in other industries, and one that regulators normally scrutinize for its potential to distort competition.

Imagine if your personal physician were owned by a pharmaceutical manufacturer. Would you fully trust that your medication recommendation was objective?

Transparency must mean more than just prices

The CMA’s transparency proposals may be sound in principle. Practices will have to disclose ownership, publish price lists, and issue written estimates for costly treatments.

But those rules won’t necessarily help pet owners understand who truly controls the advice they’re given.

A clinic might appear local and independent but be part of a corporate group with deep connections to the pet-food industry. Without clear disclosure of cross-sector ownership, consumers can’t make fully informed choices. Not just about treatment costs, but about whose products are being endorsed in the exam room.

The ethical dilemma for veterinary professionals

Most veterinarians are scrupulous about clinical integrity.

But ownership structure matters.

When performance metrics and profit targets are set higher up the corporate chain, subtle pressures can arise, including sales targets for diets, supplements, and wellness plans.

Independent practitioners can recommend any brand or product based purely on merit.

A corporately owned practice, however, may have supplier contracts or marketing guidelines that privilege in-house brands.

That doesn’t make the clinicians unethical.

It makes the system conflicted.

Regulatory blind spots

The CMA has rightly pointed out that the UK’s veterinary regulatory framework dates from 1966, when single-owner practices dominated. The profession in the UK has since evolved into a £6.3 billion sector shaped by mergers, private equity, and global corporations, some with substantial footprints in pharmaceuticals and nutrition.

But while the CMA calls for regulating business owners as well as individual vets, it has not yet tackled multi-industry conglomerate influence.

The question is no longer just: Who owns the practice?

But rather: What else do they sell?

Toward a fuller definition of transparency

If we’re serious about transparency, we must go beyond price tags and prescription fees.

True openness means:

• Declaring all parent-company affiliations, including those in pet food, nutrition, or pharmaceuticals.

• Ensuring freedom of clinical recommendation, allowing vets to choose diets and treatments without commercial constraint.

• Protecting consumer choice, so clients can access neutral advice that is not brand-driven guidance disguised as care.

• Encouraging independent oversight, possibly through an enhanced role for the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons or a new regulatory body that understands cross-sector dynamics.

  
  

The bigger picture: trust and independence

Trust is the cornerstone of veterinary medicine. Pet owners don’t just buy services; they rely on professional honesty. That trust must be protected. Especially in a market increasingly shaped by conglomerates whose business extends from the exam room to the food bowl.

The CMA deserves credit for confronting the economic structure of the profession. But it’s time for the next step: addressing the ethical and competitive implications of cross-ownership between clinical and commercial interests.

Because transparency, if it stops at prices, is only half the story.

Sources

Unpacking the CMA Report: Transparency or Tipping Point? https://www.ricklecouteur.com/post/unpacking-the-cma-report-transparency-or-tipping-point-411

Understanding the CMA’s provisional decision in its vets market investigation. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/understanding-the-cmas-provisional-decision-in-its-vets-market-investigation

RCVS responds to CMA's provisional decision. https://www.rcvs.org.uk/news-and-views/news/rcvs-responds-to-cmas-provisional-decision/?utm_source=informz&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=rcvs&&&type=rfst&set=true#cookie-widget

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