ROCKVILLE, Md., Sept. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — US retail sales of dog and cat food approached $40 billion in 2021, up 15% over 2020, according to Packaged Facts’ just-released Pet Food in the US (September 2022). Over the 2017-2021 period, dog and cat food garnered a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11%.
Recent inflationary prices for pet food only partially spurred that growth. If the pet food market is not wholly proof against hard times, it’s very hardily resistant, as proven in the wake of COVID.
Double-digit sales growth in the pet food market—large and ostensibly mature as it is—is driven by ongoing product premiumization, if not “superpremiumization.” This long-running trend is currently epitomized by the success of the fresh (refrigerated/frozen) pet food category. Fresh pet food tilts toward human-grade in formulation and to direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales in distribution, albeit now trending rapidly into brick-and-mortar as