United Petfood's $24.2 Million Arkansas Deal Keeps Mishawaka as the Flagship

United Petfood, the Ghent, Belgium-based private-label pet food manufacturer, closed on a 98,063-square-foot dry pet food plant in Decatur, Arkansas on October 5, paying $24.22 million for the facility and 46 acres along Arkansas Highway 59. The seller, Burlington, Massachusetts-based Wellness Pet Co., also signed a long-term supply agreement with United Petfood as part of the sale, making United Petfood a contract manufacturer for Wellness Pet at two of its three North American plants.

That arrangement carries more downside than the headline expansion suggests. Wellness Pet paid $26.5 million for the Decatur plant in 2022 and sold it for less four years later, a transaction that follows the company's May 2025 debt exchange that S&P rated a selective default, before a $100 million refinancing pushed its maturities out to 2029. Mishawaka remains United Petfood's proven production site. The company is still spending $5.4 million to demolish and rebuild a warehouse and distribution facility at its 1011 W. 11th Street campus, under the direction of subsidiary VP Elodie Fleury.