Magazine: Demand is shifting towards wet pet food

In the past 12 months the pet food market contracted, albeit in the last six month the negative value sales trend slowed down – informs Adrienn Földi, MARS Hungary Kft.’s trade marketing manager, adding that pet owners are looking for products with a good price-value ratio. Nestlé is optimistic about the future: Nestlé Purina Petcare expanded their Bük plant with a new unit on 8 July.

Zsolt Forczek, Nestlé Hungária Kft.’s marketing manager told us that the 10,000m² new unit cost HUF 10 billion. Now the Bük production facility is one of Nestlé’s biggest in Europe, manufacturing Purina products at 50,000m². An important characteristic of the domestic market is that private labels are very strong – they represent more than half of volume sales. According to Zoltán Molnár, Pet Hungária Kft.’s marketing director the dog food market has been temporarily drawn to a halt, while the cat food market managed to realise a minimal expansion in the domain of private label products. Consumers are price sensitive even in the lowest price categories, for instance the proportion of sales in promotion is above the 30-percent threshold even in the private label segment! Both dog and cat owners prefer to buy wet pet food and this trend strengthened further in the first six months of 2011. This February MARS Hungary introduced their new, double-meat WHISKAS products. WHISKAS Junior is now available in a bigger version. Special WHISKAS products for sterilised cats appeared in shops this month. Nestlé’s pet food division, Purina developed special food within the Pro Plan brand for dogs older than 7 years, which helps old dogs to preserve their mental freshness and active lifestyle. Under the Purina One and Friskies brands they also sell special products developed for sterilised cats. Pet Hungária’s production facilities successfully met the highest IFS criteria system this summer and also acquired the manufacturing audit of the market leading retail chain. The company will soon start online sales.