Supporting Growth Through Change: How UpClear Helps Inspired Pet Nutrition Scale with Confidence
August 18th, 2026
Those of us in FMCG know that change is a constant, including mergers and acquisitions. They bring opportunity, but also complexity, including, integrating trade processes, customer structures, commercial frameworks, ways of working, tools, capabilities and data across organisations, some of the hardest parts the integration, and all critical to capturing value post-deal.
In today’s environment, with inflationary pressure, low economic and consumer confidence, and retailers under constant performance scrutiny, getting that integration right is critical. Importantly, it needs to happen fast, or companies face the risk of significant value erosion.
The Need for a Platform That Grows With the Business
This was the situation for Inspired Pet Nutrition, home of brands such as Harringtons, Butcher’s, Wagg & Ultra Premium Direct.
Founded over a century ago in 1923, it’s grown to become one of the UK’s leading pet food manufacturers. Its footprint further expanded with the acquisition of Butcher’s Pet Care, Sopral and Ultra Premium Direct— a brand that spans across UK, Poland, France and Export. Following this move, Inspired Pet Nutrition needed to bring together multiple established businesses with their own operating models, customer relationships and data landscapes.
Pet Food Industry article from October 2024
The challenge was not just consolidation. It was about enabling future growth without adding complexity and still supporting the business and delivering value during the change journey.
To support this, Inspired Pet Nutrition needed a solution that could:
Be intuitive and easy to adopt across newly combined teams
Facilitate the integration of data coming from multiple systems and sources, rather than forcing rigid structures
Provide a single, reliable view of trade spend and customer activity across brands and markets
Support collaboration across sales, finance and demand planning
Remain flexible and scalable as the business expands into new markets.
This is where UpClear’s Blue RGM Platform, and specifically the Blue Planner solution, plays a key role.
Inspired Pet Nutrition’s Commercial Operations Director Craig Bosworth shared how UpClear’s Blue Platform stood out for its unique mix of flexibility and deep capabilities. “When starting our M&A journey, we needed a software provider that not only is a subject matter expert in FMCG Trade Promotional Management, but one that had the flexibility to meet the changing needs of our business. UpClear with the Blue Platform is certainly one of those businesses,” Bosworth said.
“We have been able to trial market leading capabilities as a true strategic partner but also utilising the strong technical team at UpClear to work through a first to market integration into the Anaplan Demand Planning Application. This has enabled us to improve the visibility of price & promotional changes on our demand plans and the accuracy of these plans.”
Blue Planner supports end to end revenue management processes for FMCG brands. It connects planning, execution and analysis in one system, while integrating with core commercial systems such as ERP and retail data sources. This allows organisations to deliver better gross to net revenue performance, trade investment ROI, stock management and internal process efficiencies without creating additional silos or complexity.
“When starting our M&A journey, we needed a software provider that not only is a subject matter expert in FMCG Trade Promotional Management, but one that had the flexibility to meet the changing needs of our business. UpClear with the Blue Platform is certainly one of those businesses.”
Craig Bosworth, Commercial Operations Director, Inspired Pet Nutrition
How UpClear Supports Inspired Pet Nutrition’s Expansion
Butcher’s Pet Care had already been using the Blue Planner application since 2020, with well-established processes and several years of commercial history built into the system.
Following the acquisition, Inspired Pet Nutrition made a deliberate decision. Instead of introducing another platform or running parallel systems, they expanded the Blue Platform across the combined organisation and used the moment to strengthen their overall commercial setup.
Once Inspired Pet Nutrition acquires Butcher’s Pet Care in 2025, we have worked closely to extend and adapt the Blue Planner application to support the new business structure:
Building on the existing Blue Planner setup from Butcher’s Pet Care, preserving historical data and established ways of working
Expanding platform usage to cover the full Inspired Pet Nutrition portfolio and commercial processes
Tailoring workflows and capabilities to reflect how Inspired Pet Nutrition plans, approves and reviews promotions
Strengthening integration with systems including ERP and Anaplan Demand Planning, reducing manual processes and improving data reliability
Rolling out the Blue Platform across additional markets, including France and Poland, to support international growth.
This approach has created a single, connected view of customer activity, spend, forecasts and actuals across the organisation. UpClear’s approach to and success integrating into the existing Demand Planning Application increased the value contribution and Inspired Pet Nutrition’s confidence to scale.
Importantly, it goes beyond visibility. The Blue Platform brings together sales, finance and demand planning in one environment, enabling teams to plan, review and adjust performance using consistent data.
Because the platform connects planning with execution and ongoing tracking, Inspired Pet Nutrition can continuously steer performance throughout the year. The flexibility in Blue Planner integration and reporting capabilities to meet Inspired Pet Nutrition’s needs to proactively manage their KPIs. Teams are able to monitor promotions, compare results against expectations and make informed adjustments as conditions change.
This level of control is essential in a category where trade investment is significant and under constant scrutiny. For Inspired Pet Nutrition, the focus has been on building a scalable and flexible operating model that can evolve as the business continues to grow.
They’ve also experienced successful collaboration with the UpClear team throughout these initiatives. “The Customer Success team have worked closely with us to meet our needs, and inevitably when there have been challenges in a project such as this, they have been pragmatic in helping us to overcome them and continue to progress the project,” said Bosworth. “For any business at this stage of development, I can certainly recommend UpClear as a true partner and one that can support business growth.”
Inspired Pet Nutrition’s ambition to continue to improve and scale, and the partnership approach with UpClear remain ambitious. Additional functionality, such as Promotion Guidelines and Scenario Planning, is being discussed to further enable Inspired Pet Nutrition to succeed.
“The Customer Success team have worked closely with us to meet our needs, and inevitably when there have been challenges in a project such as this, they have been pragmatic in helping us to overcome them and continue to progress the project. For any business at this stage of development, I can certainly recommend UpClear as a true partner and one that can support business growth.”
Craig Bosworth, Commercial Operations Director, Inspired Pet Nutrition
FAQs
When did Inspired Pet Nutrition partner with UpClear?
Inspired Pet Nutrition began their partnership with UpClear in 2025, following their acquisition of long-time client Butcher’s Pet Care.
What benefits does Inspired Pet Nutrition gain from UpClear’s Blue RGM?
Blue RGM gives Inspired Pet Nutrition one connected view of trade spend and customer activity across its combined brands and markets. It brings sales, finance, and demand planning into a single environment. Through its connected system, it enables teams to monitor promotions, compare results to expectations, and adjust as conditions change while scaling into new markets.
Why did Inspired Pet Nutrition select UpClear’s Blue RGM?
Butcher’s Pet Care, one of Inspired Pet Nutrition’s acquired brands, had already run on Blue Planner since 2020 with established processes and years of commercial history. Rather than introduce a new platform or run parallel systems after the acquisition, Inspired Pet Nutrition chose to expand that setup.
About UpClear
UpClear is a software company and maker of Blue, an intelligence platform used by Consumer Goods brands. We deliver a holistic Revenue Growth Management solution, including capabilities for TPM, TPO, IBP, and RGM. Our mission is to empower brands to maximize revenue performance and trade investment returns through intelligent, collaborative software— providing a single source of truth, streamlined automation, and actionable insights.
