Narrator: The price of pet food has increased
from an average $1.71 per pound in 2011
to $2.55 per pound in 2017,
and it plays to an increasing trend towards owners
pampering their pets.
Pet owners' total spending per year
in 2007 was $41.2 billion.
Ten years later, it hit $69.5 billion.
So what's causing this shift?
Evidence points to millennials.
Mary Hanbury: Experts say the
millennials are treating their pets
like their firstborn child, and it's kind of filling a void
that maybe previous generations would
have already had a child
and moved into houses.
Narrator: According to a report
by the Pew Research Center, millennials are 50% less likely
than the Silent Generation to be married.
They're also delaying parenthood.
Instead, they're becoming pet owners.
In 2017, millennials became the largest demographic
of US pet owners at 35%.
These pet owners not only act differently
than previously generations, they also spend differently.
Hanbury: So the data shows that
millennials are spending a lot more
on their pets.
Narrator: 76% of millennials
are likely to splurge on their pets
compared to just 50% of baby boomers,
and it's starting to show.
According to Nielsen, annual household spending on pets
increased by 36% between 2007 and 2017.
This shift has led to a flurry
of new brands entering the market.
In 2017, 4,500 new pet food products were introduced,
a 45% increase from the year before,
and many of the new entrants
were labeled as premium products.
Hanbury: It's kind of two pieces moving at once.
Owners are wanting to spend more on their pets,
and then the market is being slowly saturated
with more options of premium pet food brands.
Heinze: Premiumization is the idea that you can enhance
the perception of value of a product by marketing
or by even something very simple
like calling it a premium diet.
In this case, pet food.
Premium diets don't necessarily have anything
that a nonpremium diet don't have.
It's more the perception of what they have.
So it's playing to what pet owners feel in their gut
should be in a high-quality pet food.
Narrator: A 2007 study conducted
by the California Institute of Technology
and Stanford University found that a product's price
can alter our brain activity in how we perceive the product,
finding that our brains equate more expensive with better.
- There really is no scientific nutritional difference
necessarily between a so-called premium pet food
and a just average type of pet food.
Narrator: Many premium pet foods market
the product based on the human-grade ingredients it uses
or by what Cailin calls...
Heinze: The "no list,"
meaning they market themselves on what they don't contain.
No corn, no wheat, no grains, no byproduct, no potato.
The list is actually getting longer and longer.
Artificial preservatives, artificial colors,
all of that kind of stuff.
And the thing is, is for the vast majority of that,
there's not any evidence that it's any better.
Narrator: So who is testing pet food?
Well, the FDA only gets involved in pet food research
when it comes to specific health claims.
There are some universities that conduct research,
but a majority of the research being done in pet nutrition
is done by pet food companies.
Heinze: You can't judge the quality of a pet food solely
based on its price because some of the most-tested pet foods
out there that are the most based on science are actually
at a lower price range than many people would expect,
and some of the diets that are at the highest level,
you're not getting anything more for that other than maybe
that feeling that you're doing more for your pet.
Hanbury: I think this is connected
to a health and wellness craze
at the moment where people are taking what they eat
a lot more seriously, and obviously the next thing
when you're not thinking about yourself
is the thing closest to you, so your pets.
Heinze: Pet owners are often going to be feeding their pets
the same ways that they're feeding themselves.
So if organic is important in their diet,
they're gonna be looking for organic pet foods.
If they see their pet as a furry member of the family
like many of us do, then when they're going to buy pet food,
they're looking for pet food that is as close
to what they're eating as they can get.
They're not necessarily looking for food
that is designed for the dog.
Narrator: And with millennials dining out 30% more often
than other generations, it may just be a matter of time
before Sparky joins them for a night out.