#tbt Changing pet food industry trends from 2014 to 2017

While many of the same topics continued from 2014 to 2017, such as pet food marketing and sales, new technologies and trends have altered the focus on those issues.

Tim Wall

April 12, 2017

Maria Lange, business group director, pet care, Gfk, speaks at Petfood Forum 2016 on April 19, 2016. | Alyssa Conway

From Petfood Industry:

Petfood Forum 2017 and Petfood Innovation Workshop: Taste of Pet Food’s Future marked the 25^th year for the Forum. Although the event is over, pet food industry professionals can still learn from Petfood Forum articles and videos.

At both the 2014 and 2017 events, speakers discussed top concerns in the pet food industry. While many of the same topics continued from 2014 to 2017, such as pet food marketing and sales, new technologies and trends have altered the focus on those issues. Petfood Industry recently reported on Petfood Forum by the numbers, and those numbers reveal changing trends.

Changing trends from 2014 to 2017

Petfood forum speakers in both 2014 and 2017 discussed marketing, but now social media has become a dominant trend in pet food marketing. While 2014’s speakers discussed the use of videos online to sell pet food, 2017’s keynote speaker was a central player in the birth of social media giant Facebook.

57 – percentage of consumers who say product videos make them more likely to buy, according to Andrea Fischetti, managing director of ReelPaws Productions, who spoke about marketing petfood online at Petfood Forum 2014
10: number of years Randi Zuckerberg, the opening keynote in 2017, worked at Facebook during its founding

While marketing strategies have adapted to new technologies between 2014 and 2017, the average price of the pet food itself continued the same trend - up.

24: percentage of increase in average price per pound of petfood in the US from 2011-2013, according to Maria Lange of GfK, speaking in 2014
40: percentage increase in the price per pound of pet food sold in US pet specialty from 2011 (US$1.71) to 2016 (US$2.40), said Lange of GfK, when she spoke again in 2017

Petfood Forum attendance 2014 vs. 2017

Petfood Forum has grown dramatically over its history, as shown by a comparison of the 2014 event to this years.

2,700+: number of total participants in Petfood Forum 2017 (up 69 percent since 2014)
1,600+: approximate number of participants in Petfood Forum 2014
412: number of exhibit booths, representing 273 companies in 2017
270: number of exhibit booths in 2014, representing 195 companies