In recent years, the number of pet owners has continued to expand, and consumption concepts have become increasingly mature. The pet industry is advancing from “traditional pet care” to “scientific pet care”. This change not only promotes the upgrading and development of the industry, but also brings new opportunities to pet brands and products. This latest article will analyze the development of the pet economy and the status of pets among people.
The rapid rise of the pet economy
AMONG THE products of DOG by Dr Lisa, an Australian pet-care brand, you will find a cleanser for sensitive skin, a soothing balm and a cologne. All are free of genetically modified ingredients—and vegan, which dogs are not, at least by choice. Still, canines craving meat need not eat like animals: Butternut Box, a maker of fresh pet food taste-tested by humans, can offer your furry friend a low-fat chicken dish with peas, lentils and “a whiff of sage”. It is the most popular meal it offers.
There is little, it seems, that people won’t do for their pets.Americans spent $186bn on them last year, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, covering everything from food and vet visits to toys and grooming.That is more than they spent on childcare. Catering to pets has become big business.Mars, a company best known for its chocolate bars, made two-thirds of its revenue last year from pet-care.Besides owning the Royal Canin pet-food brand, the company also operates thousands of vet clinics.Nestlé and Colgate, two other consumer-products giants, also make around a fifth of their revenue from their pet divisions.
The future development trend of the pet industry
During the COVID-19, pet consumption experienced an explosive growth. Lonely people adopted pets one after another and spent a lot of money on them. The growth potential of the pet market is still enormous, and the prospects are promising.
And analysts reckon the pet business will soon have the zoomies again. Morgan Stanley forecasts that annual spending will rise to around $260bn by 2030, consistent with its pre-pandemic growth trend. Behind that is a shift in the relationship between pets and humans. Owners increasingly see themselves as parents, not masters. “Pets have gone from the backyard to the living room to the bedroom,” says Loïc Moutault, head of the pet division at Mars.
That change is playing out across generations. Millennials, many of whom have put off having children, have more fur babies per household than any other generation in America. Gen Z is proving to be equally pet-loving. “Millennials and Gen Z see their pets differently,” says Kristin Peck, chief executive of Zoetis, a drugmaker for animals. “They really see them as part of their families.”
Dogs, cats and other animals lucky enough to be welcomed into such families are in for a treat. Younger owners might take their pets to the vet more often, to the animals’ dismay, but they make up for it by giving them more presents. Some 95% of Gen Z owners surveyed last year by the American Pet Products Association, an industry group, said they bought their dog a gift at least once a year, compared with 81% of boomers. The average cost of those gifts was a lavish $44 among Gen Z owners, compared with $17 among boomers.
Owners are also now giving their pets yummier food.At Freshpet, an American pet-food producer founded in 2006, sales are more than double what they were three years ago. It only uses natural ingredients. William Cyr, its boss, says the firm is gaining from the “humanisation” of pets. “Canned dog food was invented in 1922,” Mr Cyr says. “And it smells like it.”
All this is attracting plenty of newcomers to the pet industry. Private-equity firms have poured so much money into buying and consolidating vet clinics that they have caught the attention of antitrust regulators in America and Britain.Earlier this month Gilles Andrier, the boss of Givaudan, a Swiss company that is the world’s largest manufacturer of flavours and fragrances, said his firm is eyeing the pet-food market.“People spend more money on pets than kids nowadays,” he explained. Best, then, to have a dog in the fight.
Keeping pets is a form of self-healing
In big cities, more and more young people are starting to keep pets. Many of the workplace beauties in the company returned home to their most basic identity – poop shoveling officers. Psychologist Erik H Erikson believes that the main task of human psychological development during the age of 20-40 is to gain intimacy and avoid loneliness. For young people striving in big cities, although they yearn for love and marriage, the reality is full of difficulties. Therefore, keeping pets has become an alternative choice for many young people to gain intimacy. Experimental data shows that interacting with pets can lower blood pressure, slow down heart rate, and lower levels of cortisol in the body. This has greatly alleviated the work pressure of contemporary young people and improved their quality of life.
In the view of Wei Ran, a registered psychologist at the Chinese Psychological Association, this phenomenon is not contradictory. When young people receive sufficient companionship from pets and feel a sense of intimacy, they will emotionally rely on their pets and look forward to the continuation of this relationship. Spending money on pets is a natural manifestation of this emotional behavior. In the process of consuming pet products, it also subtly enhances young people’s sense of belonging in the “pet circle”.
The love for pets has existed for a long time. Hundreds of years ago, the poet Lu You wrote the poem “The firewood in the creek is soft and the blanket is warm, and I and the raccoon slave do not go out”, which vividly depicts a warm and healing scene. Li Ao’s famous saying “The more people I know, the more I like dogs” is widely circulated. In fact, the earliest source of this sentence is Madame Roland during the French Revolution. The stories from ancient and modern times, both in China and abroad, have proven to us that the relationship between humans and pets is indeed extraordinary.
The booming pet economy reflects people’s desire for companionship. The pet economy is largely a lonely economy, similar to the pet industry chain, where having a furry toy accompany you to dinner, a KTV with one person, or a small hotpot with one person are all born to “cure loneliness”. If loneliness is a side effect of urban life, then the loneliness economy reflects people’s pursuit of spiritual quality of life. In addition to striving for a better life, they also pay attention to managing their spiritual world. The desire for warmth and companionship is accompanied by a shift in aesthetic patterns. Compared to their parents, people’s emotional needs are sometimes purer, more direct, and easier to discover beauty and gain spiritual dependence in the surroundings of life.
