The pet care industry around the world continues to be strong despite the economic recession and global pandemic. If you want to learn more about the European pet care industry as well as packaging trends, then continue reading. You will also learn how to increase the growth of your brand. If you are looking for the best of the best in pet food packaging companies then look no further than Amcor!
The predicted growth rate of pet care sales between 2020 to 2025 is 7.4% regardless of the pandemic. As a matter of fact, since more people are spending more time at home and in isolation, this has drastically increased how many people that now own pets. This has undoubtedly increased pet care sales.
In 2021, you may be wondering how good packaging can make a significant difference in your business. We will now look at 4 pet food trends within the industry that will continue to impact the industry.
1. People will continue to spend even more on their beloved pets
Due to the restrictions imposed due to the Cornavirus, many people have gotten more pets. Within the United States, there was a growth of 4% in the pet population. Even in the United Kingdom, there was also an increase in people adopting pets even though many adoption centres were actually closed.
Now, millennials are owning pets and according to the Pet Food Manufacturers Association, people between the ages of 24 to 35 now own pets. If they don’t already have pets, they intend on having pets in the near future. Also, 19% of said persons which amounts to 2.1 million people, actually got a pet during the Coronavirus restrictions and lockdowns.
2. Environmental concerns continue to be important
The shopping behaviours of consumers are still heavily impacted by the pandemic, however, sustainability is still quite important to worldwide consumers. As a matter of fact, due to the Coronavirus restrictions there was a reduction in carbon emissions and this has sparked even more interest in sustainability. This means that more consumers are interested in the environmental impact of businesses, even after the Coronavirus.
There was a survey done by Accenture in April, 2020 that showed that more people are thinking about how they affect the environment and how their shopping decisions also impact the environment. As a result of this, as many as 45% of consumers indicated that they would make more sustainable shopping decisions and will continue to do that in the future.
3. Pet owners want to feed their pets more natural foods
Pets have certainly become even more humanised and due to this, pet owners want to give their pets more natural foods with less ingredients. They want the food to be less processed and fresher. In 2017, the Harrington brand in the United Kingdom created a new product called “Just 6” which as the name suggests, only has 6 ingredients. This dry fog dog food product quickly became the most popular and widely purchased dog food and it even overtook the Bakers dog food.
In 2020, about half of the pet food products that were launched in Europe made claims to being natural and 43% indicated that they did not contain preservatives or additives. Now, when consumers look for pet food, they give higher priority to buying food that is healthy and organic which isn’t heavily processed. These claims actually influence about 13% of pet food buyers.
4. Pet food packaging is now heavily influenced by Ecommerce
It is no secret that Covid-19 has rapidly increased our shift to using eCommerce. Due to social distancing, more people are buying what they need online and there are even new shopping models such as direct-to-consumer.
Nestle Purina acquired Tails.com and used it to launch in 6 new countries in 2019/2020. Even Mars Petcare created their own online platform so that consumers can easily buy their Royal Canin items throughout Germany, France as well as the Netherlands.
