Global pet food market growth from product innovation, report says

The pet food industry has experienced much growth due to increased pet food market segmentation and pet product innovation, according to a new report on the global petfood industry from Global Industry Analysts Inc.
The research report, "Pet Foods: A Global Outlook," includes a collection of statistics, market briefs and research findings to provide an analysis of global pet food market trends and petfood market issues.
The report says factors like consumer receptiveness to premium foods, expanding health needs of aging pets, wide availability and exposure at retail, introduction of new products and increasing consumer preference for natural remedies over pharmaceuticals are all expected to drive pet food market sales in the future. Pet food market dynamics will change as pet food manufacturers focus on product innovations such as weight-loss foods, special diet and condition-specific functional petfoods, grain-free pet foods and innovative marketing schemes. In the past, market growth was driven by premium and super premium dry petfoods, the report says. The report also analyzes emerging markets, such as Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, where increased product availability across all price segments is expected to drive consumers to feed pets prepared foods. Growing disposable incomes in Brazil and China will make the shift to prepared pet food even greater in these countries, according to the report.