US and Canada: a comparative data analysis

The North American pet industry landscape has seen substantial changes in the past year, reflecting consumer behavior across essential and non-essential pet items. In many ways, developments in pricing, sales and preferences are similar in the whole region, but there are some interesting differences too.

Higher prices in the pet department

As of October 2023, US consumers were paying 32% more for packaged goods than they were in 2019, with people in Canada paying 22% more. Inflation is affecting all corners of the store, but the pet department in particular is seeing significantly higher prices. For example, there was a 6% increase in average unit price in the US in October 2023 compared with October 2022, and a 5% increase in Canada.

Regional differences

In the US, retail pet sales were over $31.4 billion (€28.7B) in value, +10% from a year earlier, and 5 billion in units, -3%. With spend increasing and consumption decreasing, average unit prices have also seen significant change, with the average in pet retail rising from $5.46 to $6.20, a 13.7% increase.

Looking at grocery, drug and mass retailers, the Western states had the highest average unit price in pet retail, at $6.67. This region also had the highest average unit price increase at 15% – followed by the Midwest ($6.50), South ($6.37) and Northeast ($4.98).

In Canada, sales in pet retail were $2.5 billion (€2.3B) for over 377 million units. This is an 11% increase in value and a 1% drop in unit sales compared with a year before. As seen in the US, sales value is increasing substantially while unit sales are flat or decreasing. Average unit prices in Canada are no different either, increasing from $6.03 to $6.79, a 13% increase. Alberta is the region with the highest average unit price – at $8.34 – followed by Manitoba- Saskatchewan ($8.10), Ontario ($6.66), the Maritimes ($6.34), Quebec ($6.33) and British Columbia ($6.32).

Essential purchases

There has been a great deal of movement around products that are considered essential for pet owners – including dog and cat food, and cat litter – not only in terms of pricing but also in consumer preference.

In the US, cat consumables overall stayed flat in unit sales (+1%) but saw an increase in sales value (+13.8%). In dog consumables, units increased slightly (+4.7%) and sales value increased more significantly (+11.8%). Unit sales in wet food and dry food for both cats and dogs remained flat. Supply chain disruptions and rising prices certainly contributed to unit sale decreases for wet food, and dry food stayed flat as consumers resorted to larger unit sizes in order to get more value for money and decrease their number of shopping trips.

In Canada, dog food and cat food overall stayed flat in terms of unit sales (+/-0% and -1%) but sales value increased for both (+15%). Canned cat and dog food saw a very small decrease in unit sales (-1%) while dry food increased by 2.6%. In terms of average unit prices, there was an 18.5% increase in canned cat food and a 10.9% increase in dry cat food. Canned dog food saw a 7% increase in average unit prices, with a 15% increase in dry dog food. The assumption is that Canadians have also resorted to purchasing larger package sizes in order to make their dollar go further.

Cutting back on non-essentials

Consumers have recently been cutting back on pet products they consider to be ‘non-essential’. Interestingly, those categories all saw decreasing unit sales and increasing sales value.