Pet
Food
Review

Why are some pet food brands so expensive?

A quick look at prices of popular pet food brands shows wide variation in cost. As a 'for instance' there is a £32 difference between one brand of dog food and another (Wagg and Eucanuba) and obviously there must be a reason for this! Can I suggest a few possibilities which might make a difference to the price you pay for pet food (and this is true both for cat and dog food because the brand owners are the same)

1) Ingredients: Obviously there's going to be a difference in ingredients used (or we would hope so!) but can this account for such a difference, and does it matter?

Let's look at a couple of examples. Firstly a typical bag of Eucanuba at £49.99/15kg.

Now let's compare with Gilpa Kennel at around £13.50/15kg

Obviously the consumer has to make an informed opinion as to which is better for their pet, but essentially these are both wheat and maize based foods with chicken/poultry as the meat source. Both offer complete nutrition based upon current scientific knowledge.

Compare those with what some consider a more natural alternative, this one is from the JB Pet Food range and comes in at around £26.49/12kg

Some pets suffer from an intolerance to common pet food ingredients, so that has to be taken into consideration, and some pet owners would prefer not to feed certain foods, but it is a fact that millions of pets have lived long and healthy lives on simple pet food with none of the fancy additives and suppliments that manufacturers are luring us with now. Unfortunately, the trend is for manufacturers to try and get us to spend more by echoing the human food industry - with health claims and any number of ingredients which we wouldn't normally associate with food (spirulina??)

2) Advertising: Some companies have amazing advertising budgets, and that spend has to be paid for in the price of the products (where else is it coming from?) 2006 saw the release of the world’s most expensive television pet food advertisement coming in at £1 million to support the Sheba cat food brand.

A Pet food company has broken the boundaries of TV advertising in the UK by becoming the first company ever to fully fund a television programme - on the terrestrial channel ITV. Content of the forthcoming ITV1 factual series Dog Rescue, scheduled to air early Sunday evenings, is to be fully funded by a single advertiser, the Mars, Masterfoods pet foods brand Pedigree.

The Dog Rescue series will cover the activities of two animal re-homing centres, Manchester Dogs Home and The Dogs Trust centre in Harefield, West London. Despite concerns about moving a step closer to product placement in TV programming, the Pedigree brand will not be advertised during the show but it will appear at the beginning and end of commercial breaks.

Sponsorship of premium events like Crufts cost brands such as Pedigree huge sums of money, which consumers are paying for in the price of the food.

3) Research: Familiar brands such as Purina, Pedigree, Iams, Hills and Eucanuba which are global brands spend £millions worldwide on research and development, employing hundreds of scientists and veterinarians. Purina itrself has a 337-acre facility for research! This has to be paid for!

4) Distribution Chain: Some brand owners are also manufacturers (i.e. Gilpa) so it costs less to get the food to the shops. Others (Burns, Arden Grange etc) rely on a manufacturer making food for them, so already someone else wants a snip out of the profits. As well as the brand owner, there will be wholsalers and of course the retailer wanting their percentage. So it is that a bag of food that costs just a few £ to manufacture ends up costing around £40 in the shops!

5) The humanising of pets: Yes, pet food manufacturers know that you treat your pet like a child - go on, admit it!

Euromonitor’s research has found that the pet food market has been experiencing a trend towards premium and super-premium products. This stems from the fact that pet owners are increasingly treating their companion as a member of the family (or even sometimes as a partner, in the case of single households) and as such, expenditure on pet food is rising. This trend towards premium products has also been the result of efficient marketing communication by manufacturers about the benefits of prepared pet food and this has contributed to the development of branded premium products first, with private label premium products following suit.

With the pet obesity rate reaching record levels, pet health and pet hygiene proved to be one of the biggest concerns of pet owners in 2006. This has resulted in a raft of new health focused multi-functional foods aimed at improving pet health, with product launches aimed at boosting pet paws, claws, eyes, coats, skin, teeth and even brain power. Key terms included omega 3 and 6, macro-nutrient profile, wheat and gluten-free and hypoallergenic. As pet owners became increasingly aware of the changing nutritional needs of their pets as they age, 2006 saw a great extension to life stage and lifestyle products, once the domain of premium and super-premium products. Even value manufacturers are cashing in on this trend.

What's the answer?

Customers as always will decide what to feed on the basis of experience or need. There are ways around the spiralling cost of pet food, and I've highlighted some in the Money-Saving Page

Check out also our article on the real cost of pet food (comparing feeding rates against cost)