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Over 30 years later, we’ve won numerous awards, sold over 3 billion bowls of wholesome pet food to date and helped generations of pets live the healthiest and happiest lives possible.
Together with Assisi Pet Care, we still follow that same simple philosophy, to create healthy and wholesome recipes that pets love, and to put pets, people, and the planet at the heart of everything we do.
Burns has always believed in the positive impact a healthy diet can have on our beloved pets. Since we were founded by veterinary surgeon John Burns in 1993, we’ve only ever used a selection of real ingredients, like tasty chicken, brown rice and veggies, to create simple and wholesome recipes that pets love.
Burns has come a long way from its fledgling days. It is our dream that one day every pet will consume a natural, healthy diet based on homecooked food, allowing the pet’s body to get on with what it does best.
Our focus remains on campaigning for positive change in the pet food industry, be it through our charity, nutritional education or award-winning products.
Our products are on the shelves at over 6,000 stockists and export pet food all over the world to countries as far and wide as Hong Kong and Portugal.
Read our timeline below to discover how it all started, our major milestones and where we are today.
2023
The Directors of Assisi Pet Care Group Limited are delighted to announce the acquisition Burns Pet Nutrition,
Peter Mangion, founder and CEO of Assisi Pet Care said;
“We are delighted to be adding the highly regarded Burns brand to the Assisi portfolio of brands but are equally pleased to be welcoming the fantastic Burns Pet Nutrition team to our organisation. The Burns brand is a perfect fit for Assisi in that animal health and well-being are central to the brand’s proposition. I am delighted that through this acquisition, we will add some excellent people in product development, marketing, sales, finance and operations functions, based in Kidwelly, Wales. We look forward to working with our new colleagues as we integrate the Burns brand into the Assisi portfolio and strengthen our offer to our customers across Europe. The acquisition of Burns Pet Nutrition is the first transaction since the recent investment in Assisi by Wind Point Partners and signals our commitment to execute on our growth strategy in the European Pet Care market”.
2023
In 2023 we celebrated 30 years of trading.
2018
In 2018 we celebrated 25 years of trading, and 25 years of feeding healthy and happy pets. We also decided to donate 25% of our profits to charity. What is amazing is the fact that John is still at the helm of the business and comes to work every day.
2009
Penlan Farm – a complete wet food with a field-to-plate philosophy was born. Manufactured at our Burry Port factory with ingredients sourced locally from farms within Wales, the range is modelled on a homecooked diet and uses human grade free range eggs, protein, brown rice and vegetables. The launch of Penlan marked a major milestone in our history and today it is one of our bestsellers.
2015
We are recognised as an accredited Living Wage Employer for our commitment to paying high wages and become the first UK pet food business to pay the real Living Wage. Most staff earn in excess of this.
2007
Owing to the success of the business, in 2007 John launched his own charity, The Burns Pet Nutrition Foundation. Prior to this, Burns had already been dishing out generous donations but the charity status formalised John’s vision to improve the lives of people and pets across the UK.
1993
Following 10 years of hard work, determination and perseverance, the UK’s first natural pet food company was born. It started with John, West Wales and a car full of pet food. The original stock level was a 2-tonne batch distributed into plain polythene sacks with a leaflet glued to the front. Very sophisticated!
1995
The editor of Dogs Today, Beverley Cuddy published an article on Burns titled Back to Basics which really got the phone lines ringing and enabled the business to go national.
1997
Burns became the first UK business to bring chemical-free pet food to market. Prior to this, all pet food manufactured in the UK contained antioxidising chemical to stop the food going rancid. John worked around the clock to find a natural alternative, eventually discovering that you could use Vitamin E and rosemary oil to preserve food. Burns made the switch to chemical-free pet food, setting the industry standard for others to follow.
1980
In the same decade that brought us the Rubix Cube and New Order, Veterinary Surgeon John Burns was cooking up an idea that would go on to change the pet food industry for the better. Natural, healthy pet food modelled on a homecooked diet.
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