Pet food scenario in India

The Indian pet industry has come a long way in the past decade. What was once a motley crew of shop keepers, casually selling a sparse and sometimes dubious assortment of shampoos and biscuits, has now evolved into an $800 mio plus industry. At the top of the chain is pet food, with annual growth of 24 per cent.
Continuing its growth trend, the pet food segment in India is expected to register strong double-digit retail value growth in 2014 and beyond. This growth will be driven by several factors like an increasing number of pet adoptions, rising disposable income, higher awareness of the dietary needs of pets and the booming population of the Indian middle class. The need for convenience because of time constraints, due to long working hours and changing lifestyles, is seeing more people shift to prepared food for their pets. Also, as pet food becomes more specialised, based on life stage and breed, more pet owners prefer prepared food to homemade, in a bid to maintain the wellbeing of their animals.
Tremendous potential
“Dog food in India has tremendous potential, as of the roughly 8 mio dogs in the country today, only 7 per cent contribute to our sales and we are still witnessing double-digit growth over the past five years. If all 8 million dogs were to start relying on dog food, the sales figures would explode. Now, combine this information with the fact that 600 000 pets are adopted each year, and that the people adopting them are doing increasingly well economically, and are more willing to spend on their pets than ever before,” says Nitin Kulkarni, director of corporate affairs at Mars International India Pvt Ltd, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Mars Inc., USA. Headquartered in Hyderabad, Mars International India manufactures and packages dog and cat food indigenously, under the Pedigree and Whiskas brands respectively. “Further, take note that most of the people that can afford pet products are of a certain economic stratum, and that the middle class is burgeoning year after year — it doesn’t take much to see that the pet food industry hasn’t even scraped the tip of the iceberg yet, and that better times lie ahead for pet food in the country,” emphasises Kulkarni.

Growth factors
One of the growth factors here is the increased number of pet…