Premium, high-premium, higher-premium

Download: Premium, high-premium, higher-premium (PDF-File) Niklas Siwersjö is a happy man. The export manager of Swedish pet food manufacturer Bozita and his sales team have just exhibited the pet food products of his company successfully at the UK trade show Petindex. These products include the "Tetra Recart" line, which was launched in the market eighteen months ago for cats and is now being extended to include products for dogs too. "This product appeals primarily to customers who want to buy quality," Niklas Siwersjö stresses. The product packaging, produced by carton manufacturer Tetra Pak (also Swedish), is particularly remarkable. It is easy to carry home and store and is easy and safe to open without the need for any tools. It takes up very little space in the rubbish and is recyclable - a form of packaging that fits in harmoniously with the "pure nature from Sweden" philosophy of the company. To differentiate themselves from their competitors, pet food manufacturers come up with new ideas. It's not an easy task, and in the premium sector in particular, genuine innovations are increasingly hard to find. Since manufacturers operating in the high-priced segment made orientation of their products to the life cycle of the pet a standard criterion a few years ago, true innovations have become thin on the ground. Royal Canin starts a new trend Just as the innovative capacity in the segment was threatening to dry up, the French pet food manufacturer Royal Canin has made a dynamic breakthrough with the introduction of its "Breed Health Nutrition" range. It is now gradually introducing products that are no longer tailored only to the size, age and level of activity of the dog, but are also oriented to its breed. Other companies have also latched onto this successful concept and have brought out their own products geared especially to small, medium-sized and big dogs, albeit without being able to tie into the product diversity and marketing power of Royal Canin. Natural and organic products for dogs have developed into a further trend. In the natural food segment, Hill's Pet Nutrition has made the early running with the introduction of "Nature's Best". This food, which was first presented in 2003 at Zoomark in Bologna, is made from natural ingredients with added vegetables, according to the manufacturer, and preserved naturally using Vitamin E and rosemary. It has proved to be a trendsetter for a host of premium products trying to win customers by virtue of…