VistaPets | France

Pet preferences

For many pet owners today, pets are important members of their family and consumers have increasingly complex expectations when it comes to pet food and pet products. As a result of this humanization trend in the pet food market, the concept of palatability has acquired a whole new meaning.

Feeding a pet is not just providing healthy and tasty food in sufficient quantities. Pet owners also expect the meal time to be an enjoyable moment for themselves and their pets. They want to please their cat or dog, looking for signs of food preference and enjoyment.

Industry challenges

Pet owners also have their own opinions and requirements regarding pet food. Their selection will be driven by several sensorial criteria, including smell, texture and appearance.

As these criteria are strongly influenced by pet food formulation and palatants, it is easy to understand how a pet owner’s perception of pet food may be entirely different from the pet’s appreciation of it. The challenge for the pet industry, then, is finding ways to equally satisfy pet and pet owner with the same products.

Pet food palatability

Vista Pets provides services focused on in-home palatability measurement of pet foods, pet treats and pet food supplements. A panel of over 2,000 households allows Vista Pets to select the cat or dog sub-population which best represents the target audience for the product under evaluation.

Testing conditions are very close to real-life feeding conditions, and all test protocols are custom designed to address the pet food manufacturer’s specific questions. This combination of naive animals, pet owner feedback and real-life testing conditions translates to reliable, market representative studies.

The concept of palatability continues to evolve and can today be defined more broadly as the 'consumer experience' of a pet food. The pet owner’s opinion must be taken into consideration and combined with the evaluation by the pet. One key to successful product development is to make frequent use of in-home consumer panels in the process of product evaluation. Measuring 'consumer experience' is the only way to take into account the strong emotional link between a pet and its owner. Pet food today not only has to be accepted, it has to be appreciated and enjoyed.