The demands for consumer convenience and brand differentiation are key drivers in the pet food market but it isn’t only domestic animals that can benefit. Food for wild animals, particularly birds, has developed into more than just sunflower seeds and the packaging has developed along with the market.
But it will have a tough time competing with packaging for pets, which is constantly changing to keep on top of the trends.
Small size dogs are the new fashion accessory in the UK pet market. The growing popularity of smaller breed dogs, led by the influence of celebrities such as Paris Hilton and their handbag pooches, presents an interesting opportunity for pet food packagers in higher margin, premium foods.
Despite marked success in cat food, portion control has traditionally been less evident in the dog food market, but according to Euromonitor International packaging account manager Peta Conn, the rising number of smaller dogs indicates this trend is set to change. Manufacturers such as Cesar Refined are already releasing small pouches of premium dog food targeted at the new rise in the numbers of small and toy dogs.
Pouches have so far been slower to catch on in the dog food category, with only eight per cent of owners choosing this format, compared to 30 per cent of cat owners. The convenience of a pouch is in its single-serve qualities, and this has proved particularly suitable for cat food as it can be produced easily in a standard size. However, this has been harder to reproduce for dog food as dogs range in size much more. Research from Euromonitor also shows that dog food is traditionally slower to react to innovation and trends.
Greater choice
Bites are being taken out of the canned food market, however. As alternative packaging formats have taken a greater share of the market, cans have suffered. Now they have more choice, consumers prefer not to store malodorous food leftovers in the container until a later meal time, a problem which is now avoided by alufoil trays and pouches.
Within single-serve formats, multi-packs were also a clear success story in 2005, as manufacturers encouraged higher volume sales through pricing and flavour combinations. This had a heavy impact on canned dog food. Can sales for the Winalot brand declined by 36 per cent value and top canned dog food Pedigree Multi-serve lost five per cent of retail sales in 2005, against 11 per cent growth in Pedigree Pouches.
Strong growth has characterised dry varieties of both cat and dog food, particularly as manufacturers tout the benefits of dry food for teeth, breath and general health. Flexible packaging has benefited from this trend, with an average annual growth of 10 per cent in dry cat and dog food combined between 2000 and 2005.
According to Euromonitor, this desire to save time was also at the heart of the migration from wet to dry foods. Owners can put out larger portions of dry food in advance, for periods when they won’t be at home. They are easier and lighter to purchase and store, can be bought in bulk, portioned out more freely and are odourless. However the majority of consumers are not transferring directly from wet to dry. The trend is an increased level of mixing, as time-starved owners put down dry in the morning when they have less time, but feed wet in the evening.
Cat owners are increasingly turning to premium products. Nestlé’s Gourmet Pearl added £4.3m to the category, Felix As Good As It Looks outperformed forecasted sales, and very modern, appealing packaging designs such as Sheba Dome and Sheba Creation all helped persuade consumers to splash out on their cats. Lifestyle marketing and the cosmetic appeal of the products is driving sales, as products increasingly look like something the owners might have prepared themselves.
Manufacturers have reached a plateau in terms of quality of cat food, which at the top end of the market is basically chicken breast in a can. Research from Euromonitor suggests that the arrival of near human-quality grilled or roasted meat dishes for the fussier cat population has left some producers wondering what’s left to try. Through the introduction of the super-premium category, value is growing much faster than volume, with higher retail prices presenting a potential opportunity for packagers to innovate and tap into value sales.
Wider animal variety
Ownership of a wider range of pets will benefit packaging for new food groups. Due to the specialist and niche nature of a number of these products, food availability is likely to remain limited to speciality pet stores or concessions but the growing opportunities for internet vending and consumers’ willingness to buy online suggest that market share will increase.
The market for food for animals other than pets, like wild birds, continues to grow as garden centres and pet food stores give over aisles to nuts, seeds, meal-worms and fat balls to feed the native wildlife. Traditionally, bird seed has come packaged in large bags but sizes and shapes have shifted to smaller units so that women, the biggest buyers of animal food, can handle them with ease. As the bird food business becomes more competitive, packaging assumes more importance.
“The market for wild bird food is definitely up,” says petfoodstore.co.uk proprietor Neil Marshall. “Whereas wild bird food used to be a winter seller we find it’s selling all year round now.” Marshall says programmes like Springwatch with Bill Oddie have encouraged the public to buy food for wild birds, but most want to buy something conveniently packed.
In fact, Marshall suggests that a better awareness of convenience packaging has helped boost the market for wild bird seed: “We started off buying in bulk and bagging up seeds ourselves, but nowadays there is a far greater variety of pre-packed bags of speciality mixes.”
New functionality in packaging and better brand awareness has meant buyers of wild bird food have an easier time. Plastic tubs with a lid and handle attached are the most popular way to sell meal worms as they can be transported and stored easily and the food can be dispensed without too much hassle. Plastic bags for peanuts and seed remain popular but resealable closures are now more common than a couple of years ago. New forms of food such as feed sticks and fat balls mean buyers only have to unwrap the feed from its transit packaging and hang it out to be eaten.
For wild bird feeding, more use is being made of printed corrugated board for retail-ready packs, containing many bags of seed on shelf. Transparent materials that can be printed with eye-catching designs remain popular as they also allow the buyer to ensure that the mix seems fresh and good quality.
Overall, pet and animal food packaging is likely to be focused on flexible varieties, although the volumes contained in these packs will be small and more suited to smaller run packagers. The wider use of premium packaging is likely to inject value into the pet food packaging market, although this will be tempered by commoditisation as “expensive” formats, such as ring-pull openings, experience wider usage.
For companies to maintain a competitive advantage over their rivals on the basis of packaging, they will need to constantly invest in development. For retailers, changing packaging formats may well reinvigorate the supermarket channel, which has of late faced tough competition from bulk buying online or in pet superstores.
Pet food for the future
Peta Conn, Euromonitor International packaging account manager predicts the desire to save time, look after a wider variety of pets and wild animals and dispatch convenient single servings will have a significant impact on the animal food packaging market in the future.
“Opportunities do still exist for pouches in wet dog food, particularly with the burgeoning small dog population,” she says. “Therefore Euromonitor estimates future unit growth of pouches of wet dog food to increase at an average of eight per cent per year between 2005 and 2010.”
It also predicts that the next five years will see the repackaging of dry food in smaller single-serve portions, as manufacturers will be keen to lever as much value as possible out of a sector which is less developed than areas such as wet food. Conn says that the market is already moving on in the US where “pet food may be presented in clear containers so the product is on display and appears appetising. Meals will continue to become more ‘human’, with further use of vegetables and potatoes. There will also be a greater focus on portion offerings, as manufacturers take into account the trend for multiple-pet owning.”
A growth in the pet population will further increase future demand for pet food and pet products.
Euromonitor International predicts an average annual growth rate of four per cent in the total value of the market between 2006 and 2011. A shift to smaller size pets, and the growing desire for UK owners to spend more on their pets, could result in success for premium products and single-serve packs. However, this growth is unlikely to compensate for the decline in demand for larger size packs which require more packaging material.
Loading ...
Comments are closed.