By: Henriette Bylling, CEO aka The Queen of Petfood at Aller Petfood Group

Last week I shared my view on the entrance of the “clean term” in the world of pet food. I questioned how a “clean term” could become a decision making tool for the consumer when transparent and unified terms of i.e. “Natural” are still lacking within the pet trade. Transparency was also amongst the top 3 tendencies mentioned in the Pet food Industry webinar by WATT media.

The whole value chain must convey knowledge and transparency

As pet food producers and pet food brands we are dependent on other links in the value chain to convey the knowledge and transparency. Amongst others the veterinarians and the shop assistants as the below graph with pet parent influencers will show you:

I had an interesting conversation with Abdel Hanif from Euromonitor at the recent Global Petforum in Venice. He explained that many small shops are providing a great service and can help bringing the consumer a more informed level. The challenge is that the consumer can only become as informed as the level of information that is provided.

The first link in the value chain is us as producers: It is the producer who has the responsibility of sharing this information – both with the shop teams and with the end consumers. Providing this transparent information to the shop teams means that we extend the knowledge-sharing beyond that of the marketing knowledge that “carries” our brands.  If we do not provide this transparent information to the shop teams, the pet parent will never be able to make an informed choice. In my opinion we have been successful when we can truly say that we have done our part to help the consumer being able to make the informed choice.

What is the first step? I think that it is for the pet food trade and its suppliers to change their mind-set about the consumer. As suppliers we must trust the consumer to be able to make an informed choice if given the opportunity.

Marketing to be abolished?

But does that mean that we should abolish the USPs (unique selling points) and the marketing of our pet food? Not at all. Instead, we should just believe sufficiently in our claims and the reasoning behind them. If the claims contain valuable benefits they will have an even more powerful impact on the consumer’s decision-making. Because when the consumer understands the background information that we provide them with, the informed choice is actually within reach.

Next week I will share my view on the 3rd and last of the top trends in the pet food trade: Sustainability.

I would very much like to hear your view on this topic. What is your opinion on the topic of helping our customers to an informed choice?

Our focus: Transparency in pet food and in the pet food industry

This article is part of our overall focus on transparency in the pet food industry. If you want to make sure not to miss out on our articles, shares and comments on industry trends, please subscribe to our newsletter in the box to your right or in the bottom of this page.

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Want to read more from Aller Petfood’s News & Knowledge section?

Read the previous article here