Description

Although difficult to completely calculate, according to Grandiew Research (https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/pet-supplements-market), the US pet supplement industry has been estimated at $1.9 B in 2021, with an expected CAGR of approximately 5.9% for the period 2022-2030. Further, according to an American Pet Products Association (APPA) survey (2021-2022), the dogs segment dominated the market for pet supplements and held the largest revenue share of 43.2% in 2021, and while this segment is expected to maintain dominance over the forecast period, the cats’ segment is projected to register the fastest CAGR of 6.1% in the market for pet supplements from 2022 to 2030.

With this growth and potential in mind, the Ingredient Transparency Center (ITC) used its formula and approach for examining human supplement user behavior and values across ingredient sets and transposed that model into an examination of pet parents (dog, cat and horse) supplement purchasing in the US. Fielded in early summer 2022, the report itself examines 1000 US pet parents, their approach to pet wellness, their familiarity and knowledge about a broad set of ingredients, their values and purchase motivators and then a deeper dive into specific ingredient categories such as prebiotics, collagen, probiotics and more.

The list of ingredients generally examined includes staples such as omega-3s, glucosamine and vitamins, and emerging ingredients in the pet supplement space such as ashwagandha, CBD, prebiotics and hyaluronic acid. Through its 5 year history of examining human supplement usage and behavior, ITC is able to compare and model the patterns between human and pet supplements, and understand the lag period and differences and so to anticipate future trends for the pet supplement marketplace in the US and the type of support likely to influence US pet parents.

This first of its kind consumer data set is an ingredient-up, values, influences and purchase motivator driven analysis of pet parent behaviors. All those surveyed do purchase some supplements for their pets, in many cases numerous supplements, for which they spend more than they do on their own supplement purchases. The data examines why they buy, what drives trust and transparency, to what extent the branded ingredient proposition drives purchase, what they buy and where they buy. For prebiotics specifically, the report examines what they look for on the label.

Within the analysis, ITC has filtered the view based on pet type (dog, cat, horse), pet age, pet parent gender, and frequently the behaviors of regular versus irregular providers of pet supplements. For ITC purposes, regular users are those that give a particular supplement more than 4 times per week.

Within the included extensive charts, viewers can see drivers of purchase and trust, influences and impactors, over-arching education and market gaps that lead to white space and opportunities. Knowing who these parents are and what drives them is critical for ingredients companies as well as brands – for the former, they can channel their effort directly into the features and benefits that consumers are looking for, whether it is future priorities such as branded ingredient development, clinical research, influencer outreach and support, safety data, and for the latter – the secrets, by category to providing transparency and promoting repeat sales and lifetime value.

ITC Insights provided to complement most charts highlight the pertinent observations from our team. Where we have determined there is a demographic or category over- or under-indexing and where curcumin users differ markedly from general supplement users we have dived deeper. In fact, specifically with curcumin, product safety, sourcing concerns and even organic supply chains have been recent consumer focus areas. Also, prebiotic givers over-index with current macro-trends like sustainability, transparency and other parameters and attributes; with these insights providing a roadmap of both how and when to reach them.

Increasingly, and borne by the ITC results, supplements are part of the overall health and wellness solution set of most pet parents, and this continues to be so, even through challenging economic times. Over the past few years, even as in store purchasing has diminished in importance, channels of sale have propagated. Consumers across the board are buying more supplements through multiple channels and increasing spending.

In nearly all pet supplement categories, the highest lifetime value consumers are captured young, and give products more than 4 times per week (ITC Regular Users). Across the board, the 2022 ITC results show that these consumers are ready and willing to engage, are motivated in part by clinical science and sometimes by their vets and other influencers, and that they highly value transparency and will pay more for branded ingredients included in their finished products. And when it comes to labels themselves, not all information is valued equally.

Other notes and how to interpret and use this report:

This report is provided as a PDF and PowerPoint. At any time, purchasers can right click in the PowerPoint slide to obtain supporting data.
The footers at the bottom of each slide describe the user/respondent set and numbers, and where helpful, the exact question asked.
For questions that have answers that vary by degree, such as 'frequently' and 'often' or 'extremely' and 'very' types of answers, these will typically be grouped as Top 2 or Top 3 and this will be noted in slide footers.

Use this ITC report and these insights to: