Analysis: Russian pet market grows on local production despite price polarization

The Russian pet market grew 15.8% year-over-year (YoY) in 2025, totalling ₽590 billion ($7.6B/€6.5B), according to estimates from Russian media company Zooinform. While the industry is growing, the increase was lower than in 2024 (+17.7%).

“The Russian pet product market stayed on a growth trajectory, but the structure of growth became more ‘mature’: still strong in value, more constrained in real demand, and more competitive on shelf and repeat purchase,” Yulia Dolzhenkova, Zooinform’s Chief Operating Officer, tells GlobalPETS.

Growth drivers

Last year, however, price inflation contributed more to value growth, while new demand was more limited. But this trend was not restricted to the pet sector.

“In FMCG [Fast-Moving Consumer Goods] context, Nielsen estimates inflation contribution at roughly 88% of revenue (12 months to Oct 2025), with only 12% coming from real demand. Pet products followed a similar pattern,” Dolzhenkova explains.

By segment, pet food accounts for approximately 83% of total pet product spending. Within the category, cat food drove 16% annual growth, accounting for 59% of the entire market’s revenue.

According to Zooinform, despite representing only 3.2% of the market, treats were the fastest growing category, rising 24% YoY.

A polarized economy

Selling mostly to veterinarians and breeders’ clubs across the country, Irina Golovchenko, Managing Director at distributor Valta Pet Products, explains that demand for premium and super-premium products remained strong.

On the other hand, pet food manufacturer LIMKORM GROUP states that the market share of premium and super-premium products is shifting toward economic categories.

“Our current partners also ask us to produce economic pet food,” says Konstantin Anisimov, LIMKORM’s General Manager, referring to the company’s clients for its private-label business.

This divergence is a portrait of how the Russian industry has evolved in the past year. “The market looks polarized, with 2 simultaneous realities,” adds Dolzhenkova from Zooinform.

Value-oriented demand

Economy- and value-seeking categories strengthened as more pet owners try to optimize their budgets. A signal of this reality is that hard discounters have grown by 20.2% in value and 15.4% in volume, according to NielsenIQ data.

At the same time, the premium category saw resilience in products that offer functional benefits, health and targeted solutions. “Functional pet food share continues to rise, especially in cats: functional diets represented 34.9% of cat food sales value in 2025 vs. 33.3% in 2024,” says Dolzhenkova.

Consumers are, then, trading down in their normal, routine baskets but are still willing to pay more for health-linked products and emotional categories such as treats. Eying this opportunity, Valta Pet’s flagship private-label brand began producing small treats and wet food for cats and dogs.

Third year of sanctions

The pet sector in the country is still undergoing a “continued push for local capacity and ingredient localization, alongside ongoing constraints in cross-border supply chains,” Dolzhenkova explains.

After the sanctions, with many companies halting supplies to the country, local businesses had to start or increase production to meet demand. In pet food, for instance, Zooinform estimates a 9% increase in production compared to 2024.

In the case of Valta Pet, this led to their private labels accounting for 60% of its current portfolio.

“The last 2 years have been very challenging for us. The foreign brands we distributed were banned,” Golovchenko says. “We had to develop our own products to save the company and its 1,100 employees.” Another 20% of its assortment now comes from Russian brands born in the past 2 years.

AVZ Group, a manufacturer of animal medicine, also increased its production ‘dramatically,’ with 5 new lines for pets and 20 for farm animals launched in 2025, says Kseniya Stepakova, Deputy CEO for Innovations. However, sanctions also restricted the supply necessary to produce the drugs.

“We are limited in substances and machines, so we are looking for partners in the east, like China and Asia more broadly, because they are open to us,” Stepakova explains.

Exports were also compromised, restricted to former Soviet countries and markets in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, according to both the LIMKORM and AVZ groups.

Infrastructure boost

For the industry, this shortage drove investments in both production plants and ‘support’ ingredient production such as flavorings, hydrolysates and additives, precisely to reduce exposure to imported inputs.

As the industry continues to expand, with new facilities in the pipeline for 2026, Zooinform expects additional capacity of around 100,000-150,000 tons per year “if planned projects launch on time.”

The LIMKORM Group is one such company, as it will launch a wet food production plant in 2026 and has plans to build another dry food factory in the next 2 years.

“Our forecast is that, within 10 years, the national dry pet food market will grow from 800,000 tons to above 1,100,000 tons, reaching a 40% growth in a decade. We want to be prepared,” says the company’s General Manager, Konstantin Anisimov.

Market overview

Russia produces 800,000 tons each of dry and wet pet food annually, of which about 35% is classified as premium, according to Anisimov. He also explains that half of the pet food volume is sold in the FMCG segment, with a bigger concentration of standard and economic products.

Data from Zooinform shows that grocery and non-specialized retail accounted for 56.2% of sales value in 2025.

The remainder is divided between specialized pet channels, which saw a small decline in participation from 20% in 2024 to 19.3% in 2025; online, whose share grew to 23.3% in 2025 from 21.8% in the previous year; and veterinary clinics and breeders.

Zooinform estimates that the Russian pet market will continue to grow in 2026, albeit at a more moderate pace, with an annual rate of 10% to 13%. Additionally, value-added categories such as treats, functional and health- oriented nutrition, and products for well-being tend to maintain an upward market share trajectory.