The Illusion of Choice – Truth about Pet Food

July 19, 2021 Kar-Bay-Inc 1 Comment

Based on annual revenue, there are two manufacturers of pet food that make more money than EVERYONE else combined – a lot more.

From statistics provided by PetFoodIndustry.com, there are two manufacturers of pet food that earn more than $10 billion dollars a year; Mars Petcare and Nestle Purina Petcare. Mars with more than $18 billion in annual revenue, and Purina with more than $15 billion in annual revenue.

There are five other pet food manufacturers with annual revenue greater than $1 billion a year, however these manufacturers are a huge step below Mars and Purina’s double-digit billions in annual revenue. J.M.Smucker is the leader of the single-digit billion manufacturers at almost $3 billion annually. Followed by Colgate-Palmolive’s only pet food brand Hill’s Pet Nutrition at $2.5 billion annual revenue, and General Mill’s Blue Buffalo’s brands at almost $1.7 billion. Diamond Pet Food – a privately owned manufacturer – is 4th in the single-digit billion group with $1.5 billion in annual sales. And Simmons Pet Food – a co-packer (manufactures for other brands) – is included in this category with $1 billion in annual sales.

Note that the total of annual revenue for all five single-digit billion dollar manufacturers – $9,657,100,000.00 – is less than one-third of the annual revenue of Mars and Purina.

In the next category – pet food manufacturers with sales over $100 million but under $1 billion – a trend of investment firms owning brands begins to appear. Of the eleven manufacturers in this category, four are owned by investment firms; WellPet, Alphia, Natural Balance, and Mid-America Pet Food.

In the last category – manufacturers that earn under $100 million a year – we find two human grade pet food manufacturers; The Honest Kitchen and JustFoodforDogs.

Looking back at the sales leader, Mars Petcare, the description provided for the company states “Nearly 50 brands in total, including five billion-dollar brands: Pedigree, Iams, Whiskas, Royal Canin, Nutro, and Banfield pet hospitals.” This means that Pedigree dog food’s annual sales alone is greater than all of the brands of the above category added together. Iams cat and dog food’s annual sales is greater than all the brands of the above category added together. And the same is true for Whiskas, Royal Canin, and Nutro brands individually.

Just the five Mars billion-dollar pet food brands annual sales added together – Pedigree, Iams, Whiskas, Royal Canin, and Nutro together – is greater than the annual sales of all of the brands that earn under $1 billion annually added together.

The total of all the manufacturer categories – the double-digit billion companies, the single-digit billion companies, and all companies below a billion is $47,312,620,000.00 in annual sales. But…70% of all pet food sales annually (per data provided at PetFoodIndustry.com) is from just two companies; Mars and Purina.

Note: The above is not 100% of all pet food manufacturers, the revenue data was not provided on some manufacturers and many very small brands were not listed. But we can safely assume that the above is the significant majority.

Wishing you and your pet(s) the best,

Susan Thixton
Pet Food Safety Advocate
Author Buyer Beware, Co-Author Dinner PAWsible
TruthaboutPetFood.com
Association for Truth in Pet Food

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