Whether they like to admit it or not, most owners consider their pets as part of the family. Many look at their pets in a similar light as if they were their children, and all that love to keep their fur babies happy and healthy requires a lot of cash.
In a recent survey by the American Pet Products Association, they found that Americans spent a whopping $72 billion on their pets in 2018, which was the third year in a row of $3 billion growth. When compared to two decades prior when spending was at a low $21 billion, the numbers speak for themselves on how much this industry is growing. Specifically, pet food, and most often premium pet food, accounted for $29 billion and almost half of all pet spending in 2018.
Today few product trends embody the business desire to tap into this lucrative consumer group more than the fresh-made pet food category. And with a price that’s nearly double or triple that of traditional dry kibble, fresh-made pet food manufacturers need to take advantage of every possible opportunity to drive home their brand promise and value to convince consumers it’s worth spending extra on.
Rethinking how fresh-made and premium pet food is packaged can be an effective way to market to consumers in a very frequent and experiential way. Afterall two feedings a day means at least 730 guaranteed exposure opportunities a year. Keep reading to learn how rethinking packaging solutions can give fresh-made pet food brands an advantage.
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What is fresh-made pet food?
For the unfamiliar, fresh-made pet food is the latest trend and newest business model in a rapidly growing premium pet food market. Fresh-made pet food started as owners looking for a more nutritious and natural food alternative to dry kibble and opting to cook food at home specifically for their pets so that they knew what went into it.
Naturally, it did not take long for the business world to take note of this trend and since a few years ago the market for fresh-made pet food has exploded in popularity. Now services that are similar to for-human weekly meal prep kits exist for pets, where fresh and perishable meals are vacuum packed and shipped to owners for Fido to enjoy.
Delivering on a promise
Today fresh-made pet food names such as The Farmer’s Dog, Ollie, Nom Nom, Pet Plate, Fresh Pet, and Grocery Pet are starting to steal market share from established dry kibble giants. Like any new business experiencing growth they are not without their challenges, and fresh food delivery for pets has some unique ones.
The brand promises of the fresh-made pet food model are both the reason for its success and at times the source of its challenges. For most of these businesses their brand promises are largely based on these 5 claims, and all ones that packaging can support:
Nutritious and tasty:
developed by veterinarians and nutritionists specifically for pets with some claiming to test the food on people and accepting returns if pets do not like it.
Freshly prepared:
pet food that’s prepared fresh every week, needs to be refrigerated and is labelled with the date made.
Personalized:
made for each pet’s needs such as age, activity level, allergies or health issues, and with each package having the pets name and breed on the labelling.
Ingredients:
clear labelling on each package that states simple and known ingredients such as celery or carrots and the main base such as lamb or beef.
Convenient:
made by pet chefs and delivered to the owners’ door each week in pre-portioned packages for each meal.
Let’s look at how packaging solutions can support all of these brand promises.
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Packaging nutrition and freshness
Just like a picky child, pets can have discerning tastes. With fresh-made pet food often being more than 2x the price of dry-kibble options; manufacturers want to make sure they aren’t incurring refund costs or churning customers because packaging left a plastic taste, or allowed sunlight or oxygen to change the flavor of carefully formulated meals.
Resealable packaging solutions offer the option of storing fresh-made pet food longer while ensuring taste and quality lasts longer, which can be great for an owner who has a picky pet that may not eat all its meal at one feeding.
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Packaging personalization
Personalization is a significant component of the branding and value that fresh-made pet food manufacturers offer with their promise. Not surprisingly packaging choices and design play a huge role in delivering that personalization.
Clear labelling with ‘made for Fido – 5 year old retriever’ needs careful design considerations and also scale and fulfillment considerations when it comes to executing personalization by the thousands. Choosing the right packaging partner that understands pre-press, design, scale, materials, and fulfillment can be the difference in getting it right the first time vs. costly trial and error.
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Packaging ingredient transparency
An important part of the nutritional promise that fresh-made pet food offers is not only that it’s healthier for pets and that they like the taste, but also that owners have peace-of-mind in knowing exactly what they are feeding them.
The testimonial TV-spots for The Farmer’s Dog do a great job at illustrating how important it is for owners to understand the nutritional value of their pets’ fresh-made meals. A popular spot even has an owner realizing tongue in cheek that ‘I always thought that dog food was just dog food and never thought that dogs eat FOOD!’ and ‘it’s worth investing in her health proactively’. Packaging options that leave space for label design to highlight ingredients is an important consideration to make to drive home the value proposition of using everyday known ingredients like carrots, celery, apples and lamb.
Beyond using labelling, literally seeing the ingredients of fresh-made pet food can be an opportunity to make an impact on an owner. With either transparent packaging or window options on packages, the consumer can get visual reassurance that their pet’s food has the veggie, fruit and meat pieces they’re paying extra for.
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Packaging convenience
Arguably the most important brand promise that fresh-made pet food manufacturers make is that it’s conveniently delivered to the owners door every week. Like a weekly UberEats for their dog or cat. But just like takeout or meal kit services for people; two similar challenges come up when applying this model to pets, and packaging solutions play a critical role in solving them.
The first challenge is ensuring freshness throughout the entire cycle of making, storing, and delivering food that’s intended to be perishable within a week or two. To add to the delivery challenge the weight and pack size for each meal need to be carefully thought of in order to control delivery costs for what is already a premium product. Having a packaging partner that understands the fulfillment, delivery and storage challenges can be a huge advantage.
The second challenge is trash. We all know how much trash can accumulate from a simple Amazon unboxing and the same is true for fresh-made pet food. In fact, much of the brand experience comes from sleek delivery boxes and inserts to enforce the premium feel.
But with today’s focus on climate change and environmental footprints, fresh-made pet food brands can’t afford to not be considering sustainable packaging as a way of offsetting the environmental footprint that a food delivery service creates. Especially when they often target wealthy young age groups who have a greater interest in their life long-lived experience of a deteriorating natural environment.
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Your pet-food packaging partner
The pet-food market is seeing greater growth than it ever has and nothing is more indicative of this growth than the introduction of fresh-made pet food products. As more brands enter the market and learn from experiences with this business model it’s important for them to keep in mind their entire brand promise and how packaging plays a critical role in delivering it.
At AlphaPoly we offer our clients a reliable partnership for their packaging solutions that draws on more than 30 years of industry experience and knowledge. We pride ourselves on being nimble and responsive to our clients’ needs and we offer a wide variety of traditional and sustainable packaging options that are tailor-made for the pet food industry and many others.
Find out how AlphaPoly can elevate your brand today, contact us to learn more.
