Good news: the global pet food market is still growing, in both sales and production. Sales reached about US$75 billion worldwide in 2017, according to Euromonitor International, while dry pet food production grew about 12 percent, to 28.1 million tons, according to the 2018 Alltech Global Feed Survey.
Euromonitor’s data, presented by Jared Koerten, senior research analyst, during the American Feed Industry Association’s annual pet food conference in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, showed dry dog food as the largest product category by far, at about US$32 billion — almost as large as all other categories combined. While it is growing at about a 5 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR), dog and cat treat sales are increasing 6 percent and 11 percent CAGR, respectively, though from much smaller sales bases.
And, while the US dominates as the largest market — claiming a 42 percent share of global pet care sales and nearly US$30 billion in 2017 dog and cat food sales — other countries are on the rise: Brazil is back as the second largest pet food market, growing at about 10 percent CAGR, while Russia, at No. 7, is seeing nearly 15 percent CAGR. China, the 12th largest pet food market, gets the prize for highest CAGR at almost 28 percent. (See www.PetfoodIndustry.com/articles/6931.)
The US also rules in terms of dry pet food production, but that’s not increasing; sales rises are due to premiumization, said both Koerten and Aidan Connolly, Alltech’s chief innovation officer. Instead, countries seeing high growth in dry production include some of the same with rising sales: China, up 25 percent, plus Russia and Mexico.
Overall, dry pet food production represents 3 percent of total global feed production, according to the Alltech survey. Europe, both Western and Eastern, is the largest dry pet food producing region, with a 34 percent global share; France alone accounts for 24 percent. North America follows closely at 31 percent. Latin America is also strong, at 21 percent, with Brazil, Mexico and Argentina accounting for 72 percent of that. Asia Pacific dry pet food production registered at 12 percent and Africa checked in at 2 percent, with the latter seeing 9 percent growth from 2016 to 2017.
