A feature drawing on the Fi Europe report ‘The future of petfood: Innovation, sustainability, and consumer trust’.
The pet bowl is a frontline for some of food’s biggest debates: health claims, climate footprint, new proteins, regulation and the slow mechanisation of nutrition decisions. Across Europe, pet ownership is enormous and varied – 108.3 million cats, 89.6 million dogs, nearly 50 million birds, 17.6 million fish, 24.7 million small mammals and another 10.7 million ‘other’ pets – and that population supports a EU€29.3 billion petfood market made by more than 400 companies in over 500 processing plants. These are the raw numbers in Fi Europe’s report and behind each figure sits a consumer with questions, a manufacturer with investments and an ingredient chain under pressure. Fi Europe is an international specialist event in food additives. It is held annually at various locations across Europe and is renowned for its ability to bring together buyers from regional and global markets with international suppliers of food and beverage additives.
Scale and the shifting market map
Europe’s pet landscape is more than a cultural footnote: it’s a commercial engine. West Europe alone accounts for almost two in five global petfood launches (38 percent), far outpacing Asia, east Europe and North America, which each sit in the mid-teens for share of launches – a reflection of both consumer demand and product development activity concentrated in the region. Nearly one in three new global pet products was introduced out of west Europe in the period surveyed.
Within countries, patterns vary: the UK has almost 12 million pet dogs, Germany about 10.5 million and Spain around 9.5 million, while cat populations outnumber dogs overall. The market’s scale is matched by industry complexity: thousands of product stock keeping unit (SKU) decisions, dozens of nutritional claims and rapidly changing consumer expectations.
Health, wellbeing and the microbiome
Health claims lead the rhetoric around petfood, and the data shows why. ‘Microbiome’ is singled out in the report as the fastest-growing gut-health claim, with a striking 60 percent compound annual growth rate in the volume of product launches over a recent four-year window. Prebiotic and probiotic claims are also accelerating: Innova data shows a 22 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in launches with prebiotics or probiotics between 2019 and 2023, and digestive health is the second-biggest concern for owners (34 percent in a Kerry survey). Almost a third of dog and cat owners gave their pet a nutritional supplement in the previous year – a consumer behaviour that pushes brands to extend beyond dry kibble into functional lines.
Industry initiatives underscore the science pivot. Hill’s Pet Nutrition and academic partners have launched a One Health Microbiome Resource that centralises more than 2000 pet microbiome samples – the kind of dataset that promises to move claims from marketing to measurable biology. If pet microbiome science continues to converge on human microbiome frameworks, expect more cross-over ingredients, targeted prebiotic blends and clinically framed nutrition claims.
Premiumisation, personalisation and price sensitivity
Humanisation of pets, i.e. treating animals as family, remains a powerful consumer driver. Owners want ‘people-grade’ signals: clean labels, minimally processed ingredients, traceable protein sources and health-targeted formulas. But the report highlights a tension: the cost-of-living squeeze is real. Almost 70 percent of dog owners globally say they are cutting back on toys and looking to save on food, so premium claims must be credible, or consumers will switch. At the same time, two-thirds of dog owners have tried a new brand in the past five years, while cat owners show greater brand loyalty but still experiment within a brand’s range. That churn makes provenance and demonstrable benefits commercially essential.
Pricing dynamics reveal what buyers will pay for: a hedonic analysis study cited in the report found that digestion and allergy-care claims command price premiums, whereas claims like immune support and dental benefits did not produce the same uplift – a reminder that not all health positioning translates into higher shelf price.
Protein: Traditional sources under strain, novel proteins inch forward
Animal protein remains the single most demanded ingredient yet sourcing it brings the largest environmental impact. The report cites protein sourcing as responsible for more than 75 percent of the pet industry’s environmental footprint and estimates that pets consume around 20 percent of the world’s meat and fish – a blunt statistic that forces the sector to confront its role in food-system emissions. At the same time, retail and R&D data show plant-based and novel proteins gaining ground: NielsenIQ documents 1.8 percent year-on-year growth in plant-protein products and a 7.8 percent CAGR over four years, with plant-based proteins now appearing in roughly half of petfood SKUs.
The solutions being trialled are diverse. Upcycling fish processing streams into protein hydrolysates and oils offers circular advantages and reduces reliance on imported feedstocks. Insects, black soldier fly larvae and other alternative proteins are moving from pilot projects toward commercial packages, but consumer acceptance remains a hurdle: one Innovafeed study reported a 42 percent uplift in likelihood to buy insect-based products after pet owners were presented with seven facts about the ingredient – indicating that education materially shifts perception. Cultivated (lab-grown) meat made its own headline this year when cultured chicken treats reached UK stores in a limited run, demonstrating the speed with which novel proteins can cross from lab to pet aisle when regulatory and commercial conditions allow.
Sustainability: Regenerative agriculture, circularity and packaging headaches
Sustainability in petfood is no longer a footnote. Major manufacturers have set regenerative sourcing targets and are funding farmer programmes: Nestlé Purina has committed to sourcing 50 percent of its ingredients from regenerative agriculture by 2030 and reports more than 450 farmers in related schemes. Mars is working with agricultural partners across Europe on regenerative cropping, carbon sequestration measures and deforestation-free sourcing. Those moves aim to reduce supply risk as much as carbon footprints.
Yet the report also flags structural barriers. European Pet Food Industry Federation (FEDIAF) and other organisations have published proposals to unlock feed circularity, such as easing access to safe underutilised materials and insect feedstocks, but regulatory constraints remain. The Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCR) for petfood have been endorsed as a methodology, but the report notes they are not yet formally embedded into EU law, leaving sustainability claims open to fragmentation and inconsistent messaging. Consumers are impatient: recyclability and ‘less plastic’ claims resonate strongly in studies, with six in 10 owners saying packaging matters and 52 percent actively reducing plastic use, but brands often can’t deliver the circular packaging that consumers demand.
Processing, UPFs and the transparency demand
Processing sits at the centre of the modern debate: extrusion, coating and heat-stable formulations have made dry food affordable and shelf-stable, but the rise of ultra-processed food (UPF) concerns in humans has migrated to the pet discussion. There is no formal processing taxonomy for petfood analogous to the Nova classification for human food, and several experts quoted in the Fi Europe report argue such a system would help owners understand processing levels and nutritional trade-offs. Consumers increasingly want to know not only what’s in the bag, but how ingredients were handled and manufactured.
Regulatory pressure and misinformation complicate the landscape. Label accuracy is a top concern – the report notes that accuracy and transparency in petfood labelling matters to 88 percent of consumers, and in the US, debates about federalising labelling authority (the PURR Act of 2025) have provoked pushback from groups worried about reduced transparency or weaker consumer protections. Those tensions make communication strategies and traceability systems commercially critical.
AI, data and recipe acceleration
Technology is accelerating product cycles. AI is being used across the value chain: in supply chain optimisation, predictive maintenance, quality control and, crucially, R&D. The report highlights PawCo, which says its AI platform produced 11 complete nutritional formulations in two years – a process that can take conventional manufacturers a decade. Large multinationals are also investing aggressively in AI and digital capabilities as they race to speed up innovation, manage complexity and personalise offerings. But the same tools introduce questions of trust: consumers value the convenience and tailored recommendations AI can create, even as they scrutinise the outputs more closely.
Labels, regulation and the trust premium
Trust is the recurrent theme. In a market where sustainability, processing and novel proteins collide, consumers want hard information. The Fi Europe report repeatedly returns to the need for shared standards – whether for regenerative claims, processing descriptors or environmental metrics. The fragmentation of rules across geographies (and the active policy debates in the US and the EU) means that brands must invest in compliance, traceability and straightforward communication; failure to do so risks expensive reprints, recalls or reputational damage. The report also highlights that product attributes like “natural” and “ingredient source” remain among the most impactful on-pack claims, showing that provenance still matters more than clever marketing.
The macro picture: growth with complexity
The market’s financial trajectory remains strong: Fi Europe’s survey of industry projections points to global petfood market growth from roughly US$132.9 billion in 2025 to about US$193.7 billion by 2032. Morgan Stanley and other analysts expect steady increases in per-household spending even if household-formation rates level off; US pet spending growth could accelerate toward mid-single digits and possibly higher in the latter half of the decade. That expanding wallet for pets will be contested by regulatory limits, ingredient supply constraints and a consumer base increasingly vigilant about proof and impact.
What this means for brands and buyers
The Fi Europe report reads like a briefing memo for three audiences: ingredient suppliers, who must innovate sustainably and at scale; manufacturers, who need to marry speed (AI-enabled R&D) with traceability and labelling accuracy; and retailers/brands, who must educate and translate scientific claims for consumers. The immediate commercial priorities are clear: demonstrate credible health benefits (especially around digestion and personalised care), show measurable sustainability credentials (regenerative sourcing, circular feedstocks where possible) and simplify the processing story for the shopper who increasingly judges food by both bowl and backstory.
Closing: An industry in reinvention
Petfood sits at a curious intersection – it’s an established category undergoing a period of scientific upheaval and social reappraisal. The Fi Europe report paints an industry that is concurrently conservative (reliant on traditional proteins and mass manufacturing) and adventurous (trialling cultured meat, insects, upcycled ingredients and AI-driven formulations). The winners will be those who can translate technical advances into clear, verifiable benefits at the bowl level, while calming consumer anxiety with openness and third-party science. For owners who already treat pets as family, anything less will feel unfinished.
