Jeremy J. Petersen

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 He challenges limited thinking and outdated approaches and says business is a solution for almost every problem out there – as long as it’s approached with a 360-degree view of the impacts of every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.