Mars Is Looking For The Next Generation of Pet Food Brands

Edited by The VEGPRENEUR Team

Founders building plant-based, fermentation-derived, and alternative-protein ingredients have a fresh reason to look at pet food. Big Idea Ventures and Mars Petcare have reopened their Next Generation Pet Food Program, and this year the program is actively recruiting that kind of company to apply.

Big Idea Ventures and Mars Petcare opened applications for the 2026 Next Generation Pet Food Program, a global accelerator now in its third year. It is searching for low-carbon ingredients that can be used in pet food, with a focus on alternative proteins, fats, oils, and other novel ingredients, including alternatives to carbon-intensive animal fats. The program runs through Mars Petcare’s Raws4Paws Accelerator, and the 2026 edition is backed by AAK, Bühler, Givaudan, and Ingredion, with a stronger push into Asia-Pacific than in prior years.

Selected companies receive $15,000, expert guidance, and potential commercial partnerships, along with a paid trip to Singapore to present at the Asia-Pacific Agri-Food Innovation Summit, with flights and hotel covered for one person.

The 2025 cohort drew 165 applications from 39 countries, and the three companies selected show the program’s range. They were a Canadian microalgae platform producing nutrients such as taurine, a Swedish company developing fungi-based aquaculture feed, and an Indian firm using fermentation to turn industrial side streams into protein. None were finished pet food brands. The program takes ingredient and platform companies, which is the part worth knowing for founders who assume an accelerator like this is only open to packaged-goods startups.

That scope is the opening for founders outside the pet category. The program is set up to move ingredient innovation from the human food and biotech worlds into pet nutrition, so a plant-based or fermentation platform built for people can apply on the strength of its underlying technology. A buyer the size of Mars asking for alternatives to animal-derived ingredients is a demand signal worth reading.

Applications close June 21, 2026, on the Big Idea Ventures site, and the program wants companies at lab or pilot scale that can supply at least 5 kg of ingredient samples. For founders building plant-based and alternative-protein ingredients, the takeaway is simple. A major buyer is signaling that it wants what you make, and there are about two weeks left to raise your hand.