🔒75-year-old Avon family business finds growth in fresh pet food market

A 75-year-old Avon family business that got its start selling eggs door to door has expanded significantly in recent years as it capitalizes on increased consumer demand for fresh, raw pet food.

Oma’s Pride pet food and its legacy sister company, Miller Foods, have grown from about 15 employees in 2019 to roughly 40 today, driven by increased direct-to-consumer sales and distribution through independent pet retailers.

Now leading that effort is fourth-generation family member Adam DeJulius, who became CEO in January and works from the same office once occupied by his great-grandmother, Margaret “Oma” Miller, who founded the company with her husband, Earl, in the 1950s.

The expansion represents the latest transformation for a company that spent much of its history in the poultry business.

Oma’s Pride now produces between 50,000 and 60,000 pounds of raw pet food each week at its 10,000-square-foot Avon processing facility. The products are frozen and transported to a second company facility in Bristol for storage, packaging and distribution.

The growth comes as pet owners increasingly treat their animals as members of the family and pay closer attention to ingredients and nutrition — a broader industry shift commonly described as the “humanization” of pets.

For DeJulius, that trend represented an opportunity to continue to transform what was once a relatively small part of the family operation into its primary growth engine.

Poultry to pet food

The family business didn’t start with pet food but with human nutrition.

In the 1950s, Margaret Miller and her husband, Earl, known as “Pa,” bought the 7-acre property in Avon where the business still operates. The couple raised chickens and sold eggs door to door.

That operation eventually grew into a sizable turkey farm, supplying poultry to grocery stores, schools and institutions including UConn, the University of Hartford and Hartford Hospital.

As U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations tightened in the 1970s, the company shifted from raising poultry to processing and distributing it. Miller Foods continued handling, packing and selling turkeys, but partnered with other growers to supply the birds.

Meanwhile, the pet food side of the business was started — almost by accident — by DeJulius’ grandmother, Sandy.

“She raised llamas and golden retrievers up in the woods in Massachusetts. And she had a sick dog,” he said.

This was in the 1990s, at the start of the raw pet food movement, and Sandy decided to use the food-processing equipment at the Miller Foods plant to make natural dog food for her golden retriever, Harley.

“Thirty days later Harley was doing flyball classes,” DeJulius said. “Friends were like, ‘Can you make some for us?’”

Oma’s Pride was born.

Initially, the pet food operation was a sideline, with products made in small batches and sold through the company’s Avon storefront, as well as at dog shows and farmers markets.

Over time, however, changes in the traditional food distribution industry altered the trajectory of the family business. As that industry consolidated and margins got squeezed, Miller Foods began exiting much of its distribution business and put greater emphasis on pet food.

Oma’s Pride initially focused on bulk customers and breeders rather than the broader consumer market.

“They wanted to keep it small and manageable and not get over their skis,” DeJulius said.

Miller Foods still maintains its legacy turkey business, with sales largely concentrated around Thanksgiving. Many commercial customers purchase the company’s turkeys for employees, and Big Y carries them in its stores.

Much of the money the company makes from turkey sales goes to its nonprofit arm, Miller Farms Cares, which partners with Connecticut Foodshare and other area food banks.

Fourth generation returns

DeJulius grew up around the family business, but initially pursued a career elsewhere.

After attending the University of Connecticut, he joined The Hartford, where he spent about a decade working in areas including sales, underwriting and process improvement.

He later moved into management consulting at Accenture.

By 2019, DeJulius faced a decision. Older members of his family were approaching retirement, while he and his wife were considering starting a family of their own.

He could continue investing time in his corporate career or return to Avon and see what he could make of the family business.

He looked at the pet food market and saw that Oma’s Pride was well positioned to capitalize on a growing trend.

“I did an analysis of the business,” he said. “My ambition was to say, the humanization of pet food is here. There’s an opportunity. We have great products, super-sticky customers.”

He decided to go for it, returning alongside his brother Nick to help his mother run the business, with a focus on growing its e-commerce segment.

And then, just a year later, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, bringing both opportunities and challenges for the pet food business.

The cost of meat, cardboard, plastic and fuel — which DeJulius describes as the company’s four biggest inputs — all soared. At the same time, pet ownership increased and many people spent more time at home with their animals, creating new demand.

“Our direct-to-consumer business basically doubled, but shipping frozen pet food right to people’s doors, you were making less money than you ever made on it,” DeJulius said.

Shortly before the pandemic, Oma’s Pride had signed a lease for a second location, a distribution center in Bristol. DeJulius said the additional capacity helped the company keep up as demand surged.

After the world opened up again, the company pursued the neighborhood pet retail market. DeJulius said the company made a conscious decision not to distribute through big-box stores like Walmart, Target, PetSmart or Petco, instead going for smaller, specialty stores and chains, while also building out its e-commerce, direct-to-consumer business.

“We make all of our own stuff. The inventory commitments are pretty significant and the risk is pretty large,” he said of the decision to steer clear of major retailers.

The company remains completely bootstrapped, with no outside financing, DeJulius said.

He and his brother Nick, who is head of operations, describe the company as a 75-year-old startup. But it’s a startup that the new generation is growing deliberately.

“When I got here, we were around 15 people and I think six of them were family,” DeJulius said. “And now we have about 40 folks and it’s just me and my brother, the only family members.”

Industry shift

According to the American Pet Products Association (APPA), the raw dog food segment remains niche, but has experienced meaningful growth in recent years.

In 2025, 8% of dog owners reported purchasing raw food, representing a 60% increase from 2018, according to the association.

APPA President and CEO Pete Scott said many pet owners today take a “build-the-bowl” approach to nutrition, combining different food formats to create what they perceive as a more balanced or customized diet, with raw food as one tool within a broader nutritional strategy.

“The humanization of pets has been one of the most influential forces shaping the pet industry for decades, and it continues to drive purchasing decisions today,” he said. “Owners often apply the same standards and values they use when making decisions for themselves or their families to the products they purchase for their pets.”

Scott also said that Gen Z has been a particularly influential group in accelerating this trend, with a strong recognition of the emotional and health benefits pets provide.

Another analyst, Nandini Roy Choudhury at Future Market Insights, said that small-batch producers such as Oma’s Pride are particularly well placed to benefit from these trends.

“Sourcing transparency, local production and traceability carry particular weight in this segment,” she said. “Consumers buying raw food are often interested not only in the product itself but also in where the meat came from, how it was processed and who made it.”

DeJulius said maintaining relatively small production batches is central to the company’s strategy and its positioning as a regional family-owned brand.

“We call ourselves a New England family heritage brand,” he said. “Our food is made in small batches under 200 pounds. Our ingredients are carefully sourced through relationships we’ve had for literally decades.”

For DeJulius, taking over the family business has also brought the responsibility of preserving an asset built across four generations.

He describes the work since returning to Oma’s Pride as “all-consuming,” but said it suits his high-energy personality.

“We have 40 families that rely on me every single day to make good decisions,” he said. “I have cousins, I have aunts, I have uncles, I have my mother who this is a significant asset for them and their children. Ultimately, I need to do a great job.”