Pet Food Trends Get Personal.

When it comes to diet, the average U.S. consumer is well acclimated to choice. Vitamin-fortified or au naturel? Veggie or meat lovers? Grain-free or grain…full? Health-conscious consumers have been making more wholesome food choices for themselves for decades, but the more recent convergence of pet food trends with consumers’ own nutritional philosophies marks a milestone for the industry. Walk the pet food aisle at the grocery and you’ll find no shortage of product claims concerning holistic nutrition, functional health benefits, animal welfare, and environmental impact. 

This edition of Bytes & Insights is dedicated to examining changes in pet food processing spurred by shifting consumer ideologies and advancing technology. 

Humans Develop a Taste for Change in Pet Food 

In pet food, the old notion that one size fits all is deader than the dodo. Today, dog and cat foods are more individualized, developed for pets’ physical attributes, such as age and breed, as well as their owners’ ideological preferences for “limited-ingredient,” “raw,” and “human-grade” diets. 

The adoption of human-focused factors such as ingredient sourcing and sustainability is no coincidence: the emergence of values-based pet foods is a direct response to what consumers say matters most to them. Processors’ methods for crafting product recipes and marketing messaging have come a long way since 1974’s hit Meow Mix jingle or Fancy Feast’s long-running appeal to the gourmet. 

“Modern pet parents believe that pet foods should mirror their own, including more sustainable sources of protein and more natural, plant-based ingredients,” says Jorge Martínez, president of ADM Pet Nutrition. 

Today’s pet owners are more ingredient-conscious, buying products that prioritize the food sources they value for themselves. Also noteworthy is the consumer imperative to avoid ingredients that conflict with their preferred dietary approach. Advocates of a natural diet may seek foods that include more lean meats and immediately rule out those that include animal by-products, additives, or grains. Environmentally conscious consumers may eschew meat altogether and opt for a vegan pet food or a brand committed to reducing its carbon footprint by using more sustainable ingredients and a regionalized supply chain. The producer-consumer dialogue is more diverse than ever. 

Pet food processors have responded by putting more emphasis on nutritional philosophy and sustainability, but this requires corporate resources and discipline as well as accountability from consumers and regulatory bodies. Advanced technologies that can automate production processes and introduce novel ways to grow food sources can streamline these efforts. 

For example, cultured meat and fermented proteins offer pet food processors a path to solving perceived nutritional and ethical problems with pet food production. These methods use natural, known processes to create real animal proteins without the animal welfare concerns or strain on natural resources. But these young technologies will require significant research, investment, and process overhaul before they can be employed at an industrial scale. Nevertheless, the purchasing power of the consumer is steadily driving the market toward an approach that’s more humane—or is it more human? 

Byte: Increasingly, pet food purchases align with the dietary values of pets’ owners. This trend is driven as much by owners’ nutritional philosophy as it is advances in animal science or veterinary care. 

For more pet food trends, check out our newest article on gray.com. 

Automation Takes a Byte out of Manufacturing Risks 

Among the more impactful changes in pet food processing is the use of automation to assist and improve production quality. Robotics and automation have long played an important part in allowing for greater production flexibility and speed, but recent trends in pet food projects point to automated technology that surpasses human quality checks in scope and precision. 

Just as autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) and automated guided vehicles (AGVs) can process, transport, and package materials, so too can they inspect these materials at key points throughout production and packaging. Vision systems equipped with a network of sensors perform real-time monitoring at each stage, scanning a gamut of critical factors to ensure quality and quickly respond to any problems or deficiencies they identify. 

Such systems use high-definition cameras to read and record product dimensions, SKU codes, color, and more. They also offer presence detection to ensure the correct type and quantity of product parts, identify foreign objects or contaminants, and note visible abnormalities or defects. Other environmental sensors measure product temperature, weight, viscosity, and internal pressure. Across this broad range of metrics, automated vision systems can measure more quickly and with greater accuracy than human operators. So how does the investment pay off for plant managers? 

Safer Workforce 

Employing automated technology reduces operator contact with process equipment and utilities, eliminating the possibility of injury from drops, pinch points, burns, or other machine-related accidents. Moving human operators to other roles also reduces the opportunity for pathogens to pass between raw materials and humans. 

Safer Product (and Pets!) 

Automating quality control processes also reduces risk to pets. Less human contact with the product means less opportunity for operators to unknowingly contaminate finished products. Moreover, automated vision systems’ sensory networks can monitor product conditions at a minute level, allowing them to catch problems that human operators would miss. Closer monitoring and more accurate product evaluation translates directly to safer pets. 

Better Data Management 

Efficient production processes and streamlined quality control checks rely on the flow of accurate, real-time data. Yet as demand has increased, manufacturers’ capacity and the number of SKUs produced has also increased, making it infeasible for manual data entry to keep pace with production. Furthermore, as stricter standards like the Food Safety Modernization Act have been enacted, quality control checks now evaluate a greater range of product characteristics to prevent contamination incidents. Automating quality checks streamlines the data flow between critical systems and reduces errors associated with manual entry and inefficient data recall.   

Byte: Automation isn’t just for production efficiency anymore; increasingly, its use in quality checks is helping to improve plant and product safety and facilitate better record-keeping and regulatory compliance. 

Hungry for more? Catch Dean Elkins’ full talk on automation at Petfood Forum at 2:00 on April 30, and don’t miss Gray at Booth #2506! 

Worry & Hope Drive Purchasing Habits 

Pet parents are like the rest of us: they balance buying foods they believe are healthy with foods they know their little ones will eat, then make up ground where they can. But trends in pet food purchasing show that many consumers are thinking beyond overall well-being and their pets’ personal tastes. 

Expedient Ingredient  

Consumer interest in superfoods and hero ingredients is driving spending habits to a greater degree than the avoidance of perceived negative ingredients, but both approaches are still common practice. Today, ingredients like quinoa, sweet potato, and salmon are often prized ingredients, leading to their incorporation in more pet food recipes. Meanwhile, pet food staples such as rice, wheat, and meat meal face greater backlash, with claims ranging from poor digestion to low quality. 

“Consumers seek value from the ingredients that are in the products,” says LuAnn Williams, co-founder and global insights director of Innova Market Insights. “It becomes front-of-pack marketing and is very important.” 

Sustainability Messaging 

Pet food processors have been keen to leverage sustainability as a growth driver. But in a culture that increasingly acknowledges “greenwashing” as a corporate problem, companies must do more than pay lip service on product packaging. Marketing messages must develop downstream from real, impactful changes: reducing land usage at the farm; cutting water consumption at the plant; and designing packaging that’s biodegradable or made from recycled materials. 

An Apple a Day 

More than ever, pet owners are buying food and supplements that target specific health concerns. For example, Hill’s Pet Nutrition offers Science and Prescription diets designed for a wide range of concerns, including healthier kidneys, joints, and “gastrointestinal biome.” Recent research suggests that the majority of cat and dog owners seek to buy pet food with specific claims regarding digestive health. 

As consumer purchasing patterns evolve, so too will processors seek to adapt their product recipes and corporate processes to stay ahead of the curve and expand their customer base. 

Read the complete article on gray.com to learn more. 

Pet parents have always been apt to pamper, but recent trends have seen this demographic embrace a more health-conscious approach to feeding that has demanded higher quality, greater variety, and more sustainable practices from industry leaders. As the industry responds, the average pet owner has both the privilege and the obligation to choose the feeding approach they deem best.