Grow.
Innovate.
Connect.
Let's Connect.
Join us at Connect, the Canadian platform for collaboration and innovation in the pet industry!
We are dedicated to bringing together Canadian and global pet industry leaders—including manufacturers, retailers, and suppliers—to foster strong relationships and drive success.
At Connect, you'll find invaluable opportunities for networking, education, and dialogue, all designed to help pet businesses thrive in an ever-evolving market. Our Connect Tool Box vendors and expert speakers are here to share powerful insights and strategies to help you grow your business.
This event is more than just a gathering—it's a community committed to empowering retailers
with the knowledge, skills, and connections they need to succeed. We advocate for innovative solutions and ensure retailers have access to brands that truly support them.
Built by pet professionals, Connect values your input! We invite you to share your vision and insights to make this experience even more impactful for your business. Join us in shaping the future of the pet industry—let’s grow together!
Connect:
A B2B pet trade event celebrating the Canadian pet industry hosted and created with a team that is 100% built with individuals and vendors from the Canadian Pet Industry.
Attendees and Exhibitors can enjoy all the amenities of the Connect Lounge. A spacious seating area with beverages, charging stations and plenty of seating area for impromptu meetings.
Connect brings 2 days of educational talks to attendees. Visitors will hear from Jennifer Murray, Jordan Milgrom, and financial advice through RBC, Moneris and ADP.
A highlight of the show is Connect's Fresh Food Showcase featuring a variety of frozen and gently cooked products from many of the Connect Exhibitors. Thanks to Habco for the great looking freezer setup.
Thursday night features Connect Live at the NFCC with the Orange Man Band. The evening will kick off with $10,000 in cash giveaways to retailers and exhibitors.
Tom&Sawyer: Canadian Gently-Cooked Meals To Bring Happier, Healthier, Longer Lives To Our Family Dogs and Cats
The Tom&Sawyer journey began over a decade ago, thanks to a Yorkie-Poo named Sawyer. When co-founders Kristin Matthews and Peter Zakarow brought Sawyer home, they quickly discovered he was a picky eater and had various health issues. Regular pet food in various forms was unappealing to him, and even led to E. Coli and pancreatitis. Determined to help Sawyer thrive, Kristin and Peter began preparing his meals at home, using gently-cooked ingredients from the grocery store. The results were undeniable: better health, fewer vet visits, and a much happier Sawyer. Seeing how this fresh approach to pet food transformed Sawyer’s life, the duo decided to professionalize things with a world leading R&D team of vets and animal nutritionists, a manufacturing facility and an offer to bring this health and vitality to thousands of family pets across Canada - and the brand Tom&Sawyer was born.
Through launching the gently-cooked pet food category in Canada, Tom&Sawyer also had a vision to bring a higher level of quality to pet food, to adopt stringent human food regulations to improve pet food safety, and to have some fun in bringing products to market that would bring joy and variety to our family pets and their parents. What you see today is the first pet food in Canada that meets the new 100% AAFCO Human-Grade requirement of being made in an inspected human food facility, which puts Tom&Sawyer in a new upper tier of product quality and safety. Our recipes are thoughtfully developed with wholesome, real ingredients like novel proteins and exciting flavours including Italian Beef Pasta, Coconut Chicken, Bento Box, Chicken Cacciatore and Rosemary Venison. Each meal is created with a focus on nutritional quality and variety, making mealtime a fun and health-boosting experience for our pets from supporting puppy development to managing health conditions like allergies, low-fat diets, and renal support for senior pets.
Tom&Sawyer provides a diverse selection of high-quality, gently-cooked meals available for home delivery and through specialty pet retailers nationwide in their freezer section. Whether as a full meal or a topper to complement other food types, Tom&Sawyer provides an option to bring enhanced nutrition, health and wellness to pet owners to meet all budgets. Tom&Sawyer aligns with the interests of more pet parents who really want to make the best decisions for their family pets and know what is in the food they are paying for. We are so excited to be attending the Connect Pet Show in May 2025 to meet with many new and existing customers, and also to introduce Tom&Sawyer VetChef, a newly launched line of vet-formulated meals available for specialty pet retailers. Learn more about our complete meal offerings at www.tomandsawyer.com or reach out at [email protected].