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
Tim Wall covers the dog, cat and other pet food industries as a senior reporter for WATT Global Media. His work has appeared inScientific American, Live Science, Discovery News, Honduras Weekly, Global Journalist and other outlets. He holds an M.A. in journalism and an M.S. in natural resources, both
from the University of Missouri - Columbia, along with a bachelor's degree in biology.
Wall served in the Peace Corps in Honduras from 2005 to 2007, where he coordinated with the town government of Moroceli to organize a municipal trash collection system, taught environmental science, translated for medical brigades and facilitated sustainable agriculture, along with other projects.
A new year brings new opportunities and excitement, and 2023 is bound to be the same, with several chances for advancing policy issues of importance to the U.S. animal food industry.
