Treats drive sales growth in Europe

While the cat food market in Great Britain and Germany showed a slight decline in 2016 compared with the previous year, it exhibited growth in Italy and France. In three of the four countries studied, the treat segment performed better than average. Dry food once again fared better in all four countries than wet food, sales of which were down everywhere compared with the previous year.

In Germany, value sales of cat food fell last year by 0.5 per cent compared with the previous year, according to IRI data. The biggest drop in sales was for treats and affected all distribution channels apart from drugstores. The decline of 1.7 per cent in this category was more than that of dry food sales (-0.2 per cent) and sales of wet food (-0.4 per cent). 
Sales of milk products increased by 0.4 per cent last year compared with 2015. In the period under review, the hypermarkets performed best with regard to cat food sales, increasing these by 2.4 per cent. The biggest losers were the discount stores, which saw sales of wet food in particular fall by 3.8 per cent. 
In terms of tonnage, cat food declined by 0.4 per cent. Here the highest falls were for wet food (-0.7 per cent) and milk products (-2 per cent). 
The tonnage for treats grew by 6 per cent during the review period due to lower consumer prices in the supermarkets, hypermarkets and drugstores. Dry food tonnage showed a slight increase of 0.5 per cent.

Cat food sales and volume declined in Great Britain in 2016 even more than in Germany, with sales down by 3.3 per cent and tonnage by 3.1 per cent. This trend impacted all distribution channels. Only treats showed a positive trend (sales: +1.1 per cent; volume: +1.3 per cent). The sales decline for wet food was 3.7 per cent and dry food sales were down by 3.4 per cent. Wet food tonnage fell by 3.7 per cent; the tonnage for dry food, however, remained at the same level as the previous year.

The trend in France was upwards, with cat food sales increasing by 1.6 per cent compared with the previous year. Growth was recorded above all in the hypermarkets and supermarkets (2.3 per cent each) and in convenience stores (+3.3 per cent). The treat segment showed pleasing development, recording sales growth of 8.8 per…