Healthy Pet Food

In the UK you can buy a 15 kg bag of dog food for £ 9.99, or you can deep into your wallet and pay £ 41 for another brand. So why should we pay up to 400% more for a bag of food – it is justified?

Well, I’m sure there are a number of reasons why a bag of food is more expensive than the others, but I will discuss some options that could make a difference to the price you pay for food animals suggest (and this applies to both Dog and cat food, because trademark holders are the same)

First of all, and it is cynical to put on my hat, you pay what you are, because the owner has chosen the brand, that is what you are willing to pay for their food are. The marketing department has its research, millions on advertising and creating the right image were issued, they have a level of consumer confidence built, and now you have to pay for it!

Where is my testimony might ask? Well, let’s a few examples, not to take extreme. Here are two lists of ingredients:

Article 1

Derived from cereals, meat and animals, vegetable protein extracts, oils and fats, vegetable by-products, minerals, yeasts. EEC contains antioxidants, colorants and preservatives allowed.

Product 2

Wheat, meat, flour, corn, oils and fats, flaxseed, beet, peas, Lucerne, vitamins and minerals. Added Citrus, Yeast and Yucca. EEC contains antioxidants, colorants and preservatives allowed.

Not much difference in the ingredients, but a product of a multinational company with a marketing budget to pay for millions, and it costs £ 25 kg for a bag with 15. Article 2, £ 9.99 for the cost of 17 kg. Brands are Pedigree and Wagg. I rest my case!

1) You ingredients make the difference in cost?

Of course, there is a difference in the ingredients list (or we hope!), But this can explain such a difference, and is it important? Let’s look at some examples. First, a typical bag Eucanuba to £ 41.99 in Britain.

Ingredients

Chicken (> 20%), corn, wheat, barley, sorghum, animal fat, fish meal, dried beet pulp, chicken digest, dried whole eggs, brewers yeast, potassium chloride, sodium chloride, linseed, DL-methionine, sodiumhexametaphosphate glucosamine HCl, chondroitin sulfate, salt,

Now we compare Gilpa Kennel £ 12.39

Ingredients

Wheat, poultry, corn, wheat feed digest, poultry, poultry fat, whey powder, soya oil, yeast, herbs, from New Zealand green-lipped mussel, yucca extract, minerals, trace elements to extract trace elements and vitamins, including zinc chelate. With EEC permitted antioxidants.

Obviously, the consumer has an educated opinion about what is best for their animals, but they are mainly wheat and maize-based foods chicken / poultry as a source of meat. Both offer complete nutrition on current scientific knowledge to the analysis broadly similar basis.

More “natural” foods and often more expensive will tend to other grains than wheat (usually rice) and perhaps a single source of meat protein (chicken, duck, fish or lamb are the most common) to use, adding that the meat , and is naturally preserved with vitamin E or the like. These types of foods that can be classified as hypoallergenic are more important because some animals suffer from an intolerance to pet food ingredients together, so that will be considered.

It is a fact long since forgotten, however, that millions of animals have a long and healthy life to the individual fancy food without additives and supplements that manufacturers lure us to live with now. Unfortunately, the trend for manufacturers try to spend more and we echo the human food industry – with health claims and a number of ingredients that we normally do not connect with food.

2) All ads as Fance? Some companies have advertising budgets incredible, and that disclosure must be paid in the price of the products (where else he is) was released in 2006, the world’s most expensive television advertising food animals come to £ 1,000,000 for support of Sheba cat food brand.

A feed company has broken the boundaries of television advertising in the UK was the first company to fully fund a TV show – on the terrestrial channel ITV. Contents of the next series of ITV1′s factual Dog Rescue planned to air early Sunday night, must completely from a single provider, Mars, Pedigree Masterfoods pet food brand to be financed.

Rescue Dog series covers the activities of two animal re-homing centers, Manchester Dogs Home and The Dogs Trust Harefield Centre in West London. Despite concerns, one step closer to product placement in TV shows, Pedigree brand is not announced during the show, but it will appear at the beginning and end of commercial breaks.

Sponsorship of events such as high-end brands such as Pedigree Crufts cost vast sums of money that consumers pay the price of food.

3) Research and development: well-known brands such as Purina, Pedigree, Iams, Hills and Eucanuba global brands around the world spend millions of dollars in research and development, with hundreds of scientists and veterinarians. These must be paid!

4) The impact of the distribution chain: Some brands are also producers (ie Gilpa), so it is cheaper to get to food in the shops. Other (Burns, Arden Grange etc) to a manufacturer, food makes for they are based, so that someone else wants a snip of the profits. As the owner of the brand, it is wholsale and of course the dealers want their share. So a bag of groceries, which ends only cost € for the manufacture of some costs about £ 40 in the shops!

5) We love to replace our children! Yes, the manufacturers of animal feed to know that you treat your pet like a child – go, admit it!

Euro monitor study found that the market for animal feed is a trend towards premium and super premium products. This is because pet owners are increasingly treating its growing partner as a family member (or even as a partner, in the case of one-person households) and as such, the pet food expenditures. This trend towards premium products has also been the result of effective marketing communications from the manufacturers about the benefits of prepared food, and this led to the development of branded high-end artists began with the private label premium products follow this example .

Achieved record levels of obesity animal, turned to the health and hygiene from animal to be one of the biggest concerns of pet owners in 2006. This led to a series of new health focused multi-functional food for improving the health of animals, with product launches, animal paws, claws, eyes, skin, increase skin, teeth, and the energy of the brain. Key terms included omega 3 and 6, the macro-nutrient profile, hypoallergenic wheat-and gluten-free. As pet owners more aware of the change in the nutritional needs of their animals when they become older, 2006 saw a major extension to the life stage and lifestyle products, once the range of premium and super premium products. Even value manufacturers are benefiting from this trend.