"Natural" and organic petfood sales are expected to hit US$2.6 billion by 2014, up from about $1.7 billion in 2009, according to the Boston Globe .

Human organic food sales are not seeing the same growth and actually declined 0.3% in 2009, market research firm Mintel International Group estimated.

One possible reason for the increased organic petfood sales is that owners are willing to scale back on their own food during the recession in order to pay a premium for their pets' food.