Small, stable and hotly contested

Speak to industry experts about the pet supplies market in Belgium, and their verdict is pretty unanimous: the market is stable, but hotly contested. According to Euromonitor International, it has a total volume of € 554 million. Data from the European Pet Food Industry suggest that cage birds, with a population of 2.7 million, are especially popular in Belgium. Cats are also well represented with a population of 1.9 million. Dogs are not quite as widespread in the country, but come a respectable third with a population of 1.33 million. The population of small mammals is of a similar size at 1.3 million pets, while the ornamental fish segment lags well behind with 146 000 fish. Nevertheless, the aquatics market in this country of 10.8 million people is relatively stable, says Frank de Goey, managing director of the Dutch company Ruinemans Aquarium B.V. “In contrast to other European countries, there has been neither a collapse nor growth in the market in the last few years.” The company delivers ornamental and pond fish to Belgium once a week: “We have a well-established client base there.” Rodolphe Ruelle, sales director at JBL, takes a less optimistic view of the situation in the aquatics segment: “Even if the Belgian market is relatively stable in itself, I have the feeling that the market for aquariums has declined somewhat recently.” Ruelle points to the grow­ing difficulty in selling larger aquariums to customers in Belgium as one of the defining features of this trend. The nano trend has not really caught on in this bilingual country either. Pond segment strong in Belgium “Something that always performs well in Belgium, however, is the pond segment,” says Ruelle, although he qualifies this by add­ing: “There is great competition from Holland, admittedly, especially where food for pond fish is concerned. The production of private label brands in this segment is also very strong in Belgium, which naturally signifies further competition for us.” The strong presence of private label products in Belgium is confirmed by Erik Lambrecht, sales manager at Versele Laga. He regards the market as pretty unique in Europe. “The Belgian market is a special market with its own culture, which is probably related to the size and location of the country.” A special feature of it is the large number of small, independent pet supplies dealers that exist alongside the big chains like Maxi Zoo, Tom & Co., Belpet and Aveve. For Dirk Schulze, managing director of the…