Why do some pet foods cost so much?
In the UK, you can buy a 15kg bag of dog food for £9.99, or you can dig deeper into your wallet and pay £41 for another brand. So why should we pay up to 400% more for a bag of food? Is it justified?
Well, I’m sure there are several reasons why one bag of food is more expensive than another, but I’m going to suggest a few possibilities that can make a difference in the price you pay for pet food (and this is true for both both dog and cat food because the brand owners are the same)
First of all, and this is putting on a cynical hat, you’re paying what you pay because the brand owner has decided that’s what they’re willing to pay for their pet food. The marketing department has done their research, millions have been spent on advertising and creating the right image, they have created a degree of trust in the eyes of the consumer and now you have to pay for it.
Where is my evidence, you might ask? Well, let’s take a couple of examples and not from the extremes. Here are two ingredient lists:
Product 1
Cereals, meat and animal by-products, vegetable protein extracts, oils and fats, by-products of vegetable origin, mineral substances, yeasts. Contains antioxidants, dyes and preservatives allowed by the EEC.
Product 2
Wheat, meat meal, corn, oils and fats, flaxseed, beet pulp, peas, alfalfa, vitamins and minerals. Citrus, yeast and yucca were added. Contains antioxidants, dyes and preservatives allowed by the EEC.
There’s not much of a difference in ingredients, but Product 1 comes from a multinational with a marketing budget in the millions to pay, and costs £25 for a 15kg bag. Product 2 costs £9.99 per 17kg. The brands are Pedigree and Wagg. I stay with my case!
1) Do the ingredients make a difference in cost?
Obviously there will be a difference in the ingredients used (or so we hope!), but can this explain such a difference? Does it matter? Let’s see examples. First up is a typical bag of Eucanuba at £41.99 in the UK.
Ingredients
Chicken: (>20%), corn, wheat, barley, sorghum, animal fat, fish meal, dried beet pulp, poultry meal, dried whole egg, dried brewer’s yeast, potassium chloride, sodium chloride, flaxseed , DL-Methionine, Glucosamine HCl, Chondroitin Sulfate, Salt, Sodium Hexametaphosphate
Now let’s compare to Gilpa Kennel at £12.39
Ingredients
Wheat, Poultry, Maize, Wheat Feed, Poultry Digest, Poultry Fat, Whey Powder, Soybean Oil, Yeast, Herbal Blend, New Zealand Green Lipped Mussel Extract, Cassava Extract, Minerals, trace elements and vitamins, including zinc chelate. With antioxidants allowed by the EEC.
Obviously the consumer has to make an informed judgment as to which is best for their pet, but essentially these are wheat and corn based foods with chicken/poultry as the meat source. Both offer complete nutrition based on current scientific knowledge with very similar analysis.
More ‘natural’ and often more expensive foods will tend to use non-wheat grains (usually rice) and perhaps a single source of meat protein (most common chicken, duck, fish or lamb) added as flour. meat, and can be naturally preserved with vitamin E or similar. These types of foods, which can be broadly classified as more hypoallergenic, are important because some pets suffer from intolerances to common pet food ingredients and should be considered.
However, it is a long forgotten fact that millions of pets have lived long and healthy lives on simple pet foods without any of the fancy additives and supplements that manufacturers are now luring us with. Unfortunately, the trend is for manufacturers to try to make us spend more by echoing the human food industry, with health claims and a host of ingredients we wouldn’t normally associate with food.
2) All those fancy ads: Some companies have staggering ad budgets, and that expense has to be paid for out of the price of the products (where else does it come from?) 2006 saw the launch of the world’s most expensive pet food TV ad, valued at Sheba cat food.
A pet food company has broken the boundaries of television advertising in the UK by becoming the first company to fully fund a television programme, on terrestrial channel ITV. The content of ITV1’s upcoming factual series Dog Rescue, scheduled to air on Sunday nights, will be entirely funded by a single advertiser, pet food brand Mars, Masterfoods, Pedigree.
The Dog Rescue series will cover the activities of two animal rehoming centres, Manchester Dogs Home and The Dogs Trust center in Harefield, west London. Despite concerns about moving a step further toward product placement in television programming, the Pedigree brand will not be advertised during the show, but will appear at the beginning and end of commercial breaks.
Sponsoring premium events like Crufts costs brands like Pedigree huge sums of money, which consumers pay in the price of food.
3) Research and development: Family brands like Purina, Pedigree, Iams, Hills and Eucanuba, which are global brands, spend millions of dollars worldwide on research and development, employing hundreds of scientists and veterinarians. This must be paid for!
4) The impact of the Distribution Chain: Some brand owners are also manufacturers (for example, Gilpa), so it costs less to get the food to the stores. Others (Burns, Arden Grange, etc.) rely on a manufacturer to prepare food for them, so someone already wants a cut of the profits. In addition to the brand owner, there will be wholesalers and of course the retailer who will want their share. So a bag of food that costs a few euros to make ends up costing around 40 euros in stores!
5) We love our surrogate children! : Yes, pet food manufacturers know that you treat your pet like a child. Go ahead, admit it!
Euromonitor research has found that the pet food market has been experiencing a trend towards premium and super-premium products. This is due to the fact that pet owners are increasingly treating their companion as a member of the family (or sometimes even a partner, in the case of single-person households) and as such spending on pet food is increasing. This trend towards premium products has also been a result of efficient marketing communication by manufacturers about the benefits of prepared pet food and this has contributed to the development of premium branded products first, followed by premium private label products .
With the pet obesity rate reaching record levels, pet health and hygiene proved to be one of the biggest concerns of pet owners in 2006. This has resulted in a number of new health-focused multifunctional foods aimed to improve the health of pets, with launched products aimed at enhancing the paws, claws, eyes, fur, skin, teeth and even the intellectual capacity of pets. Key terms included omega 3 and 6, macronutrient profile, wheat and gluten free, and hypoallergenic. As pet owners became increasingly aware of the changing nutritional needs of their pets as they aged, 2006 saw a wide spread to life stage and lifestyle products, once the domain of pets. premium and super premium products. Even value makers are taking advantage of this trend.
At the end of the day, of course, the consumer can always vote with their feet and move on to a different brand if they feel they are being ripped off.