Newsletter
Shop
Login
Menü
3/2003
Deep insights, facts & figures: Premium information for the pet industry.
- Retailers and suppliers: exclusive insights
- Market analyses and country reports
- Magazine in print and digital
- Latest news and archive
TRIAL OFFER
Subscription
Continue reading now
Already a subscriber?
Ralf Majer-Abele
More than ever before, flexibility and mobility are a must in international commerce. Only those companies that move with the times and adapt themselves continuously to the requirements of their customers succeed in the long term. Firms that expect to solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions are likely to end up as tomorrow’s losers. A steady stream of new ideas is called for in the pet food business too. The competition is fierce; groups such as Nestlé, Mars, Procter & Gamble and Colgate, to name just the biggest, have seen to that. But size alone is still no guarantee of success.
The success of Nutro in the pet product trade has demonstrated that even family firms are sometimes capable of outsmarting the big boys. According to a survey by the American market research institute ASW, Nutro’s “Natural Choice Lamb & Rice” dog food brand has been the number one bestseller in the speciality retail for the last two years. This is in spite of the cut-throat competition in the US pet food market. Nutro is growing faster than the market as a whole in Europe, too. Speciality retailers cite two reasons for this trend: the superb quality of Nutro foods and the high margin for the retailers compared with other premium brands.
Another star of the speciality pet trade in the last few years has been the French company Royal Canin. The market launch of its “Feline Nutrition” range of dry cat food at Interzoo in 1996 sparked something of a revolution in the European market. Since then the company, which last year became part of the Mars Group, has gone successfully about its business in the same quiet and direct manner as Nutro. And with a stream of new innovations and a polished marketing strategy, Royal Canin has been able to carry the speciality retail trade as well as the consumers along with it.
The success of Nutro and Royal Canin demonstrates two things: first, genuine innovations, which unlike pseudo-innovations are oriented to the needs of the consumer, continue to reap rewards. And second: honesty and reliability are virtues that strike a chord with customers, even in our time.
Your
Ralf Majer-Abele
More than ever before, flexibility and mobility are a must in international commerce. Only those companies that move with the times and adapt themselves continuously to the requirements of their customers succeed in the long term. Firms that expect to solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions are likely to end up as tomorrow’s losers. A steady stream of new ideas is called for in the pet food business too. The competition is fierce; groups such as Nestlé, Mars, Procter & Gamble and Colgate, to name just the biggest, have seen to that. But size alone is still no guarantee of success.
The success of Nutro in the pet product trade has demonstrated that even family firms are sometimes capable of outsmarting the big boys. According to a survey by the American market research institute ASW, Nutro’s “Natural Choice Lamb & Rice” dog food brand has been the number one bestseller in the speciality retail for the last two years. This is in spite of the cut-throat competition in the US pet food market. Nutro is growing faster than the market as a whole in Europe, too. Speciality retailers cite two reasons for this trend: the superb quality of Nutro foods and the high margin for the retailers compared with other premium brands.
Another star of the speciality pet trade in the last few years has been the French company Royal Canin. The market launch of its “Feline Nutrition” range of dry cat food at Interzoo in 1996 sparked something of a revolution in the European market. Since then the company, which last year became part of the Mars Group, has gone successfully about its business in the same quiet and direct manner as Nutro. And with a stream of new innovations and a polished marketing strategy, Royal Canin has been able to carry the speciality retail trade as well as the consumers along with it.
The success of Nutro and Royal Canin demonstrates two things: first, genuine innovations, which unlike pseudo-innovations are oriented to the needs of the consumer, continue to reap rewards. And second: honesty and reliability are virtues that strike a chord with customers, even in our time.
Your
Ralf Majer-Abele
Newsletter