Pets on parade: warm and cuddly vs hi-tech
May 02, 2024
KANSAS CITY, MO – Almost 4,000 pet food professionals gathered here this week for the 2024 PetFood Forum event. Seven hundred exhibitors, ranging from ingredient giants such as ADM and Cargill to “mom and pop” pet nutrition companies filled the Exhibit Hall that featured equipment demonstrations, education stages, networking spots, and live and robotic dogs.
Presentations ranged from highly technical: “The Effect of Dehydration on Textural, Chemical and Color Properties of Jerky Treats Using Swine Pluck,” to deep nutrition science: “Prebiotics for Pets: The Next Generation of Gut-Health Solutions,” and from regulatory: “Pet Food FSMA Compliance,” to trends: “Tracking Pet Consumer and Retail Trends.”
Tuesday’s keynote speaker, Daniel Levine, director of the Avant-Guide Institute, talked about how consumers, culture, and technology drive trends that change the way people feed their pets. Two takeaways relevant to the rice industry were increased desire for functional foods and growing transparency in food packaging and marketing.
Functionality of food, such as improving gut health or relieving anxiety, is growing, and one exhibitor here, StabilNutrition, has zeroed in on rice bran as a vital and effective ingredient for pet food.
Levine, going down the transparency track, showcased packaging of human and pet food, and even restaurant menus that demonstrated ingredient traceability for consumers. Something seen widely in seafood, but also appearing in the rice aisle with the addition of QR codes to labels that take consumers right to the farm where the rice originated.
Education sessions took deep dives into sustainability, avoiding and detecting marketing greenwash, and consumer trends and beliefs.
Again, there were takeaways for the rice industry.
Across generations, pet owners are looking to veterinarians for information on pet food, making them valuable similarly to dietitians in communicating the benefits of U.S.-grown rice to consumers – if pet foods will call out U.S. rice.
When polled about what matters to consumers about the food and treats they purchase for their pets, ingredients themselves are of top importance. But the sustainability record and the country of origin of the ingredients also factor into decision making.
Wednesday’s keynote speaker, Tamara Ghandhour, founder of consultancy LaunchStreet, shared insights into tapping into human capital to achieve business breakthroughs and innovation that cross all businesses.
Approximately seven percent of U.S.-grown rice makes its way into pet food, either brokens, brewers rice, or byproducts such as bran and bran oil.
Petfood Forum is organized by WATT Global Media and the 2025 event will be back here April 28-30.