Consumer trends drive pet food development globally

BENEO conducted a pet food survey among 2,500 respondents in Germany, the UK, the US, China and Brazil to explore the increasing focus on health and wellness and how this trend is addressed with functional pet food ingredients.

Search for quality

Worldwide quality is the key driver for 40% of pet product purchases, followed by price and promotions (28%) and familiarity with the brand/product (14%). A full 81% of pet owners worldwide ‘completely’ or ‘somewhat’ agree they want to see the same quality standards for their pet’s food as for their own.

All things natural

Another highly influential trend for pet food is natural ingredients. This reflects the move towards clean label and the increasing number of shoppers looking at the ingredient label before purchasing. More than half of pet owners (52%) say that seeing ‘made with natural ingredients’ on a product really influences their likelihood of purchasing it.

In wet pet food, for example, it would be advisable to look for alternatives to gums and modified starches. Research has shown that adding 3 to 3.5% rice starch generates the same viscosity as a guar/xanthan gum mixture. Rice starch is a highly digestible ingredient and since rice is generally known to be free from common allergens, it represents a suitable clean label ingredient for all pets.

Impact of digestive health

In human nutrition, 78% of consumers say that digestive health is ‘extremely’ or ‘very important’ to them, and people are ever more familiar with the gut microbiome. This is also true for pet care. 83% of pet owners say that they consider the digestive health of their pet as ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ important to them.

With its long recognised qualities in digestive health, chicory inulin is one of the few proven prebiotics both in human and animal nutrition.

Besides its digestive benefits, chicory inulin can also contribute to pets’ health by curbing appetite and blood sugar levels, improving calcium absorption and reducing odour of fecal matters.

Inspiring messages on-pack

Over half (58%) of owners always or frequently choose foods to improve their pet’s digestion and only 9% use medication to solve digestive difficulties. The digestive health claims that pet owners most prefer on-pack are those that refer to ‘supporting a healthy and balanced digestive system’ and ‘promoting digestive health naturally’, as these tie into consumers’ key motivations for all things healthy and natural.

Ben Cottenie