Trendsetter in the pet industry

Innovations are more important than ever in the pet industry. At a time when the trend towards ever greater humanisation of pets, the need for more sustainable products and packaging, and digitalisation are constantly creating new trends, the pet industry is under increasing pressure to come up with new ideas to further strengthen the industry’s growth and meet the changing needs of its customers. As Interzoo recently showed, the pet supplies industry is not running out of new products, even if not every new development is a genuine innovation. Never­theless, every new product makes a significant contribution to advancing the pet industry. 

The four winning products in the competition organised by the trade magazines pet and PET worldwide should definitely benefit the pet industry. Anyone who has managed to get a high three-digit number of votes from the trade in the face of tough competition from other products has already gained so much attention and approval for their product that it can be considered a success story.

One such success story in the dog food category is the product Primox Feinschmecker from the company Stroetmann Tiernahrung. The product confidently prevailed against almost 20 other new products, with a huge lead over the next best entry. According to the manufacturer, the complete food consists of 100 per cent natural ingredients, including 70 per cent meat and offal, and is produced in Germany.

The winner in the cat food category was Pets Nature. The company from Fellbach in Baden-Württemberg impressively repeated its victory from the previous year. While the pet product of the year in 2023 was the then still relatively new brand Lucky Lou, Pets Nature has now also managed to land on the winner’s podium straight away with Lucky Lou Food Code, the new dry food line of the successful Lucky Lou brand. With 37.2 per cent of all votes, the brand had a comfortable lead of almost 10 per cent over the runner-up. Behind the Food Code, according to Pets Nature, is a carefully guarded recipe “that offers the ultimate balance between flavour and vitality for all my homies”. Its particular achievement was attaining a food acceptance rate of 97 per cent among 118 brave cats who tested the food.  

The race for the pet /PET worldwide Product of the Year was most exciting in the category of accessories for dogs and cats. In the survey of German specialist retailers, the winner, the company Weenect, with its particularly light and small GPS tracker Weenect XS, was a hair’s breadth ahead of the runner-up. The fact that the victory was ultimately even clearer (lead: 1.9 per cent) was due to the particularly good performance of the product in the international pet trade.

In the small animal/ornamental fish/bird category, on the other hand, the result was again clear-cut: Stroetmann Tiernahrung won its second prize this year for its elles Heimat-Liebe product. The premium mix for wild birds is not only energy-rich, but also sustainable. All ingredients come from the company’s home region and are therefore grown in Germany.