That’s a personal choice, of course, and depends on what you value.

If you’ve grown up with a family vet, you’ll know how special that relationship is. You might want to preserve that for future generations.

There’s also a bigger picture. When you choose an NZ-owned clinic, you’re not only investing in your pet’s health – you’re also investing in your local community and keeping our economy thriving.

Here are some other advantages of supporting local:

The easiest way to find out? Just ask!

When global corporates buy a clinic, they won’t advertise the fact. They want to give the impression it’s local. Sometimes the original owner stays on as an employee, so you still see familiar faces.

Independent clinics are always proud to tell you they’re community-owned! And if you’d like to support one, you can search a list of your local IndieVet clinics here.

Note: there are other NZ-owned clinics that aren’t part of our IndieVets collective, and we encourage you to support them too.

In recent years, many New Zealand clinics have been bought by Australian, US or European corporate groups.

For example, you might be surprised to learn that a number of clinics throughout NZ are actually owned by “EQT”, a multi-billion dollar global company.

The vets and teams working at these clinics are there for all the right reasons—they care about your animals.

But for the global corporation that owns the clinic, their priority is profit, and much of that revenue heads offshore.

Once a clinic is bought by a corporate chain, it rarely returns to community ownership and may even be closed down. (In the corporate world, having fewer clinics and offering less choice is known as ‘consolidation’).

Independent clinics are the opposite! There are new ones opening regularly, each offering something unique and special to their local community.

Through IndieVets, we want to keep the ownership dream alive for future generations of vets.

There are similar movements in the UK and the US  .

Each clinic needs to meet our criteria to become part of IndieVets. As well as being New Zealand-owned, an IndieVet clinic must be committed to high standards of clinical care, treating staff well, and providing a quality service.

These standards are overseen by the collective IndieVets membership.

Each IndieVet member clinic contributes to the running of the community – by sharing their expertise, ideas, and resources with each other.