Innovations make all the difference

The pet supplies sector can look forward to 2008 with some confidence. The market is continuing to grow globally and the demand for pets remains high. The conditions in which pets are kept have also improved in terms of quality. Whereas dogs and cats were regarded for a long time primarily as working animals and treated in a correspondingly harsh manner, they are now seen as members of the family in many parts of the world and cherished accordingly by their owners. The proportion of pets no longer fed on scraps from the table but rather on industrially produced food is also growing in many countries.In eastern and southern Europe in particular, the market for pet products has expanded dramatically in the last ten years. Although spending power is only increasing gradually in some of the countries in these regions, and rural areas especially have a lot of catching up to do, sales of pet products are continuing to rise even here. The more the lifestyle in the new EU member states in particular is approximated to western standards, the more our industry stands to benefit.   To ensure that the pet segment remains on course for growth in the future, it's important for the market to remain innovative. Attractive new products are like the icing on the cake. Many firms complain, however, that it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to carry on developing really novel products. This is not entirely incomprehensible: we now have foods coordinated to the size, life cycle, lifestyle and even the breed of animals. In the aquatics segment, too, we lack groundbreaking new developments at present: most of the products new to the market are merely slight improvements on products that already exist, not trailblazing innovations. Although the global market will probably continue to grow for the foreseeable future, we must not overlook the fact that in many countries in Europe, where the market is already saturated, only modest growth is still being achieved. It remains to be seen whether Interzoo 2008 will bring a change for the better. The sector could make good use of new impetus.
YoursRalf Majer-Abele