As noted in the previous edition of Market Report (see the July 2023 issue of Petfood Industry magazine), a single-minded focus on pet population growth, or even more narrowly on new pet parents, can mean looking at pet market opportunities from the wrong end of the telescope — unless you’re focusing on kittens.
Trended MRI-Simmons data show the number of U.S. households with a puppy under one year old falling from 5.6 million in 2014 to 4.4 million as of 2023. In contrast, the number of households with a kitten rose from 3.1 million to 3.9 million over this period. As a result of these converse trends, the ratio of kitten households to puppy households catapulted from 54% to 89% over the last 10 years (see Table 1). From another data perspective, 12% of current cat parents have a kitten, while under 9% of dog parents have a puppy.
