Dry Food

This by far the most popular dog food in the UK.  One factor that has shaped the pet food industry more than any other: convenience.

These days, many of us struggle to find the time to prepare a nutritious, balanced diet for ourselves, let alone our dogs, so it’s no surprise that the demand for complete dry/Kibble dog foods has increased by 90% in the last 10 years.
And amongst complete foods, dry complete – the most convenient options of all, have come to completely dominate the pet food market from top to bottom. Their draw is obvious: they provide everything your dog needs in a single bag, they are easy to store, and (usually) relatively inexpensive.

But does all this convenience come at a price?

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Unless you’ve been living (and shopping) in a cave, you will certainly have heard of each of pet food’s big three corporations but what you might not know is that, between them, they own almost all of the UK’s best known pet food brands.
• Mars: Pedigree, Cesar, Chappi, Frolic, Kitekat, Pal, Nutro, Greenies, James Wellbeloved, Royal Canin, Sheba, Whiskas.
• Nestle: Bakers, Beneful, Beta, Bonio, Felix, Friskies, Just Right, ProPlan, Purina One, Purina Veterinary Diets, Winalot.
• Colgate-Palmolive: Hills Science Plan, Hills Prescription Diets.

But how have these three companies come to control the pet food market so completely? It must be because their products are so good, right? Unfortunately not.

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Pet food domination

The problem is that, for many pet owners, The Big Three are pet food. They are the only companies rich enough to have TV advertising and the only ones that can afford the terms imposed by supermarkets. For the millions of pet owners that never step inside a dedicated pet shop and never read specialist pet magazines, the other brands may as well not exist.

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But it doesn’t end there. The Big Three aren’t content with just mainstream dominance. By buying out the most successful independent brands and effectively inventing veterinary diets, the corporations have even taken a large bite of the pet shop and veterinary market. 9 out of 10 vets now recommend foods from one of the big three. The corporations have long understood the importance of veterinary recommendations and have spent millions on securing their positions as the vets’ diet of choice with ‘sponsored’ nutritional modules at veterinary college and substantial monitory incentives for veterinary practices.

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With so much expenditure on advertising, supermarket special offers, and retailer incentives, you might think there would be less money to spend on ingredients and in many cases, you would be right. One look through the ingredients lists of the UK’s two biggest dog food brands, Pedigree, and Bakers, clearly shows that marketing is a lot more important to a brand’s success than the quality of the products. Of course, when your customers have nowhere else to go, quality can afford to take a back seat.

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The fight back

Of course, when your pet’s health doesn’t come first, there is bound to be a backlash. Many retailers are now scaling back on their big three brands our shop Healthy Pet Supplies in Thrapston is leading independent pet shops in a full-scale boycott of the big three brands!

Healthy Pet Supplies have taken much time to ensure we do not stock any products from the big three brands and have sourced a wide range of top-notch independent pet food brands from around the UK and beyond.

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The fact is that the big three are just companies and like all companies, they are answerable to their customers.

Every time a pet owner moves from a low-grade food to a good quality diet, it increases the pressure on the manufacturers of low-quality foods to change their ways and to finally put our pets first.

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