Central Asia foresees market growth amid buyer’s behavior change

The International Trade Center (ITC) believes that pet food imports to the region – comprising Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan – raised from around 8,000 tonnes in 2010 (representing $35 million) to roughly 45,000 tonnes in 2020 ($50 million).

Local analyst Andrey Sitnikov highlights that the market share of local brands is still limited to a few percent, with the market being dominated by international brands. According to Sitnikov, small brands have standing customers who primarily opt to feed their pets with low-budget products.

The region tended to import cheaper pet food during the past decade and this trend reversed only with the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the demand for premium pet food spurred.

But the new user behavior killed the super-premium pet food segment. According to local online retailer Zootopia, almost no holistic pet food is left on the market and the high price became unaffordable for local pet owners.

Fuerhemire, Sitnikov remembers that the pandemic made the logistics way more expensive and caused disruptions in the supply chain, entailing temporary shortages on the market.  

In addition to Nestlé, Purina and Royal Canin, the largest suppliers of pet food in Central Asia are Monge and Forza10.

Central Asia is characterized by a relatively high share of pet birds and fish mainly. Analysts Andrey Sitnikov explain that the region is predominantly inhabited by the Muslim population, which is not so fond of cats and dogs.

The largest cities such as Nursultan (Kazakhstan), Tashkent (Uzbekistan), and Dushanbe (Tajikistan) embrace the humanization trend, while in the rural areas, nothing similar is seen. “Dogs here are still perceived more as guardians than pets, so they are primarily fed with food waste,” an insider explained.

Rising demand

Experts believe the behavior of the pet food market in Central Asia is very similar to the one in Russia, only lagging for 5 to 10 years, and warned that the lack of official data on pet food sales makes the market “poorly understood” even by local companies.

Local online retailer Zootopia expects the current growth trend to continue, resulting in nearly double the local pet food market volume by 2030.

The Uzbek pet food retailer ZooDoctor admitted that the demand in the country is on the rise. In 2017, the Uzbek government rolled out plans of the Chinese company Wenzhou Jingshen Trade Co to launch the country’s first pet food production in the Dhizak special economic zone with the designed production performance of 1,000 tones.

However, a company spokesperson admitted there are no pet food producers in Uzbekistan and no information on the Chinese project is available.