Pet brands are increasingly using clinically-validated postbiotics to build customer loyalty and command premium pricing, as pet parents demand substantiated benefits backed by peer-reviewed research rather than marketing claims alone. Clinical proof separates market leaders from competitors and drives repeat purchases through measurable benefits pet owners can notice within typical repurchase windows.
- 75% of pet product buyers look for proven claims, with clinical proof as the most desired claim type
- Postbiotics are shelf-stable, easier to formulate, and deliver more consistent results than live probiotics because they're end products rather than living organisms
- Clinically-validated postbiotics require randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trials with peer review and testing in target species (dogs and cats)
- Over 50% of consumers will pay premium prices for products with clinically proven benefits
- Clinical validation drives retention through a loyalty flywheel: customers notice benefits in 28 days, repurchase, leave positive reviews, and lower acquisition costs
Pet parents are asking harder questions about the supplements they buy, and increasingly, only proof will do. That was the throughline of a recent webinar, "From Proof to Purchase: How Clinically-Validated Postbiotics Pay Off for Pet Brands," featuring Kendall Dabaghi, co-founder and CEO of Kingdom, and Adrian Kerester, the company's vice president of growth.
What is a postbiotic?
Dabaghi framed the biotics category with a simple analogy: Probiotics are living microbes, the "factories" that produce beneficial compounds for dogs and cats. Prebiotics are what those factories consume to grow. Postbiotics are the beneficial compounds the factories create.
Because postbiotics are the end product rather than a living organism, they don't require the same handling as probiotics, Dabaghi said. They're shelf-stable, easier to formulate with and can be delivered directly to a targeted part of the body, the gut or the oral cavity, for example, producing more consistent results than live cultures, which often come with variability in colony-forming-unit counts.
That stability and formulation flexibility, combined with a wave of consumer interest, has made postbiotics the fastest-growing segment of the pet biotics market, according to data the speakers cited from MarketPlace research presented at the 2026 NASC conference.
Where the market is heading
The bigger story, according to Kerester, is what pet parents are demanding before they'll trust a claim. "Pet parents are demanding substantiated benefits and are willing to pay up for them," Kerester said, adding that consumers are doing their own research and gravitating toward products backed by clinical studies rather than marketing language alone.
The downside of skipping that step is real, she added. Products that make unsubstantiated claims tend to generate churn, negative reviews and negative word of mouth, which are outcomes that are costly for brands that end up reformulating or losing loyal customers.
The upside runs the opposite direction: Products backed by clinical proof can command premium pricing, drive repeat purchases and build positive word of mouth.
Dabaghi cited consumer research showing about 75% of pet product buyers are looking for proven claims, with clinical proof ranking as the single most desired claim type. More than half of consumers said they'd pay a premium for a product with a clinically proven benefit attached to it.
That shift explains why so many brands are moving to put "postbiotic" on pack, but Kerester cautioned that the label alone doesn't tell pet parents much of anything.
"A huge number of brands are starting to put postbiotic on label," Kerester said. "That is really exciting, but it also tells you nothing about the efficacy behind it."
The postbiotic opportunity
That distinction — between a postbiotic ingredient and a clinically validated one — was the core of the speakers' focus. Dabaghi noted a generic postbiotic can be made by fermenting a strain and spray-drying it, which technically qualifies for the label. “But without clinical evidence, it's not all that helpful to put it in your product because it may not be doing anything," he explained.
Dabaghi pointed to specific, well-documented claims as the differentiator between generic and validated postbiotics. As an example of the kind of specificity he meant, he described an ingredient studied for its effect on stool quality over a 28-day period as opposed to vague language like "supports digestion."
Dabaghi outlined a checklist for evaluating whether a postbiotic is truly clinically validated.
"A truly clinically validated postbiotic will have gone through a clinical trial that's randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, with a clear statistical power analysis, pre-specified primary and secondary endpoints, and a pre-specified analysis plan rather than after-the-fact data mining,” he said. “Results should also hold up under peer review.”
Kerester added one more criterion often left off such checklists: species. "The study was run in the target population — dogs and cats — versus in other species, humans, production animals, etc.," she said.
The payoff: retention
The payoff for brands shows up in retention, Kerester said. Because pet parents can notice a benefit within the typical 28-day repurchase window, they're more likely to buy again, leave favorable reviews and recommend the product, a cycle Kerester described as a flywheel that also lowers customer acquisition costs and raises lifetime value.
The bottom line for formulators, according to both speakers: A postbiotic claim on its own is no longer enough to differentiate a product. What increasingly separates category leaders from the rest is whether the science behind an ingredient can survive peer review — and whether the resulting benefit is one a pet parent can actually notice.
