Pet food marketing in 2026: new owners have stopped coming, so grow value per pet
Pet ownership has peaked in Europe's clearest data, so pet food brands now grow on spend per pet. Here is the evidence, an 80-segment matrix and a scorer for the first segment ads.
Co-founder / Creative Director, AI Vidia · Lecturer, Business Academy Copenhagen
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Short answer
Pet food marketing in 2026 has to grow value per pet, because the supply of new owners has stalled. German pet households fell from 47% in 2020 to 43% in 2025, and Chewy added 3% more customers from fiscal 2021 to 2025 while sales per customer rose 36%. Brands now grow by moving existing owners to senior, functional and wet formats, which takes ads written for each life stage and need.
Image generated with AI: a senior dog at feeding time, the owner moment a senior formula ad is written for.
Pet food brands can no longer count on new owners for growth. The pandemic pulled years of pet acquisitions forward, and in the markets with the cleanest data the share of households with a pet has drifted down since. Revenue now has to come from the animals already living in your customers' homes: the senior formula, the wet topper, the functional diet, the second product on the subscription.
That makes it a creative problem.
The owner of an eleven-year-old retriever who hesitates on the stairs and the first-time owner of an indoor kitten respond to different scenes, words and proof, and a growth plan built on value per pet needs ads for both.
Is the pet market still adding new owners in 2026?
In Germany, no. The share of households keeping a dog, cat, small mammal or bird rose from 45% in 2019 to 47% in 2020 and 2021, then fell every year to 43% in 2025, according to the annual survey by the pet industry associations IVH and ZZF (Der Deutsche Heimtiermarkt 2025). The number of those animals fell from 34.9 million in 2020 to 33.4 million.
Fewer German households keep a pet than at the 2020 peakShare of households with a dog, cat, small mammal or bird, 2019 to 2025
45%
2019
47%
2020
47%
2021
46%
2022
45%
2023
44%
2024
43%
2025
Fewer German households keep a pet than at the 2020 peak. Share of households with a dog, cat, small mammal or bird, 2019 to 2025
Item
Value
2019
45%
2020
47%
2021
47%
2022
46%
2023
45%
2024
44%
2025
43%
IVH and ZZF annual Skopos survey (7,000 households 2019 to 2021, 5,000 from 2022; online interviews added in 2021, so read the trend as indicative)
Germany is the cleanest long series in Europe, and its pet food sales of about EUR 4.3 billion in stores make it one of the largest markets. When IVH and ZZF presented the 2024 figures, ZZF president Norbert Holthenrich said that apart from cats, which rose again, pet numbers were stagnating at a high level or falling slightly (press conference speech, 16 April 2025).
The UK points the same way. UK Pet Food estimates that 60% of households owned a pet in 2024, down from 62% in 2022, and it chose not to publish 2025 population data at all (historical pet data).
Be careful with the European headline. FEDIAF, the European pet food federation, counts 140 million pet-owning households and 306 million pets in its 2026 report, but it changed its method in 2024 (restating 2022 from 91 million to 166 million households) and its country list in 2025, and it advises against year-on-year comparisons (FEDIAF Annual Review 2024). A chart of FEDIAF headlines over time mostly shows methodology.
How big was the pandemic pet boom, once replacements are counted?
Smaller than the headlines. UK Pet Food reported in March 2021 that 3.2 million UK households had acquired a pet since the start of the pandemic (PFMA release), and the PDSA estimated that 5.4 million dogs, cats and rabbits had been acquired since March 2020.
The same PDSA report found no statistically significant increase in the UK population of pet dogs, cats and rabbits since February 2020, because many new animals replaced ones that had died or been given up (PDSA PAW Report 2022). Germany added almost a million pets in 2020, a rise the IVH said home office during Covid had reinforced (ZZF, March 2021), and gave it back over the following years.
The bigger effect was on plans. Forecasts, investment cases and media budgets were set on two years of acquisition that turned out to be a timing shift. Most brands now compete for share in a market whose number of owners is flat.
Where pet brand revenue growth comes from when owner numbers stall
It comes from spend per household. Chewy, the largest online pet retailer in the US, is the clearest public example because its filings report both numbers every year.
Chewy, Inc. key metrics by fiscal year. Source: Form 10-K filings for fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2025 (fiscal 2021 and 2022 restated after a common-control transaction). Fiscal 2024 had 53 weeks. A customer is a household, not an animal.
Fiscal year
Active customers
Net sales per active customer
Autoship share of net sales
2020
19.2 million
USD 372
68.4%
2021
20.7 million
USD 434
70.5%
2022
20.4 million
USD 496
73.2%
2023
20.1 million
USD 555
76.2%
2024
20.5 million
USD 578
79.2%
2025
21.3 million
USD 591
83.3%
Chewy grew on spend per customer while its customer count barely movedChange from fiscal 2021 to fiscal 2025, nominal US dollars
Active customers3.2%
Net sales per active customer36%
Net sales41%
Chewy grew on spend per customer while its customer count barely moved. Change from fiscal 2021 to fiscal 2025, nominal US dollars
Item
Value
Active customers
3.2%
Net sales per active customer
36%
Net sales
41%
Chewy, Inc. Form 10-K filings for fiscal 2023 (restated fiscal 2021 figures) and fiscal 2025; percentages are AI Vidia arithmetic
Chewy's fiscal 2025 annual report names the driver in a heading: pet humanization and premiumization driving higher spending per pet. Read it as one strong signal, since it is a single US retailer and its customer count includes buyers of toys and pharmacy items.
The trade up is also uneven. APPA's 2026 dog owner report finds premium food is still the most fed option, at 31% of owners, while basic dog food rose 11% to 21% and treat spending fell (APPA, July 2026). APPA also counted 22% of US owners spending less on their pets in 2025. Value seekers are a segment too, with their own message.
The animals are also getting older. A study of 13.3 million dogs and 2.4 million cats seen at Banfield hospitals put life expectancy at birth at 12.69 years for dogs and 11.18 years for cats, rising across the 2013 to 2018 survey years (Montoya and colleagues, Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 2023). More years per animal means more of them in the senior stage, where needs and spending change.
Eighty messages: the segment matrix behind pet food ads
Most marketing teams already know their segments. Combine four life stages, five size and breed groups and four health needs and you get 80 dog audiences, each with its own problem, trigger moment and reason to pay more. For cats, swap size for indoor or outdoor life and the number of cats in the home.
The 4 x 5 x 4 segment matrix for dog food. The dimensions are AI Vidia's planning method; the owner concerns in the last column are examples to replace with your own customer research.
Dimension
Options
What changes in the ad
Life stage (4)
Puppy, adult, mature, senior
The moment: arrival and training, routine, the first slower walk, stiff mornings and a smaller appetite
Size and breed group (5)
Toy, small, medium, large, giant
Kibble size, portion, the home it lives in, the joint and weight worries owners of big dogs carry
Health need (4)
Digestion, skin and coat, joints and mobility, weight
The visible sign the owner watches for, and the claim you are allowed to make about it
The matrix matters because owners buy on health. In a survey of 2,181 dog and cat owners, health and nutrition ranked first among purchase factors, owners strongly agreed that they feed a diet matched to their pet's medical condition (6.35 on a 7-point scale) and largely disagreed that they switch because the pet is bored (2.76) (Schleicher, Cash and Freeman, Canadian Veterinary Journal, 2019). Vets were the main information source for 43.6% of them and the internet for 24.6%.
A happy dog in a meadow speaks to none of those concerns. The useful question for a growth lead is how many of the 80 cells the current creative plan actually reaches.
Image generated with AI: a blank segment grid and three plain pouches, the planning view of life stage, size and need.
Need new ads? Describe your product and what you want to test.
Start with the segments where a product, a reachable audience and a visible moment meet. The scorer below turns that into five questions; run it for each candidate segment and give your production budget to the high scores first.
ScorecardDoes this pet segment get its own ads?Score one segment at a time, for example senior large-breed dogs with stiff joints. Total the points and read the verdict.
Score: 0 of 10 · 0 of 5 answered
Answer every question to see the verdict.
How to read your score
Score
Verdict
What it means
0 to 4
Keep it in the master ad
The segment is real, but there is not enough product, reach or claim room to justify its own concepts yet. Revisit it when the range or the data changes.
5 to 7
Test it as a variant set
Give the segment three to five variants inside an existing concept: its own opening scene and first line, the same offer. Read cost per purchase against the master.
8 to 10
Give it its own concept
The segment has a product, a reachable audience and a moment worth showing. Brief a separate concept with its own claim, scenes and proof, and test it as its own cell.
The points and bands are an AI Vidia planning method, not a measured benchmark. A low claim score does not stop the segment; it means the claim must be cleared before production.
A brand selling mainly through supermarkets or marketplaces rarely knows the age or breed of the animals it feeds. Start with segments owners declare themselves, such as the senior formula they already buy or the size chosen at checkout, and treat inferred targeting with care. Owners notice when an ad knows too much.
What a pet food ad can claim, and what turns it into a drug claim
Eighty variants means eighty times the claims, and pet food is regulated more tightly than many teams assume. In the EU, Regulation (EC) No 767/2009 Article 13(3) says feed labelling and presentation shall not claim it will "prevent, treat or cure a disease" (EUR-Lex). Article 13(2) does allow claims about "support or protection of the physiological conditions".
Health claims in pet food ads. Sources: Regulation (EC) No 767/2009 Article 13, Regulation (EU) 2020/354, the FEDIAF Code of Good Labelling Practice (October 2019) and the FDA's page on how it regulates pet food. Example lines are illustrations, not legal advice.
Claim type
Example line
EU
US
Nutrition or support
"Supports healthy joints"
Allowed if substantiated before use (Art. 13(2), FEDIAF code)
A food claim while it stays about nutrition
Particular nutritional purpose
"Support of renal function"
Only for a dietetic feed that meets the Regulation (EU) 2020/354 list
Therapeutic diets fall under FDA enforcement discretion and are sold through vets
Disease
"Protects your senior dog against arthritis"
Prohibited (Art. 13(3)(a))
Makes the product a new animal drug
The FDA uses almost that last example itself: "a product intended to improve joint function in an arthritic dog" is a drug under the FD&C Act (FDA, how it regulates pet food). The FEDIAF code adds that every claim must be supported by evidence at the time the product is placed on the market (FEDIAF Code of Good Labelling Practice).
Two newer rules sit on top. Since 27 September 2026, EU consumer law bans generic environmental claims such as "sustainable" unless the brand can show recognised excellent environmental performance, and bans climate-neutral claims based on offsetting (Directive (EU) 2024/825). And Article 50(4) of the EU AI Act has required deployers to disclose deep fakes since 2 August 2026, while the Digital Omnibus gave providers of tools already on the market until 2 December 2026 to mark generated output (Regulation (EU) 2026/1744); the guide to how platforms label AI ads covers the platform side.
The working answer is a claim library. Approve each claim once, with its evidence, then let every variant draw from it.
Production cost is what keeps most segments on the master ad
A shoot with animals, handlers, a location and post-production can cost more than the media budget of a small segment, so brands run a few master creatives and accept that most owners see an ad written for someone else. Animals also refuse direction, which is why so many pet ads reuse the same few takes.
The platforms reward the opposite. Meta's engineers wrote, when they introduced the Andromeda ad retrieval system, that "increased ad diversity can improve people's experience with ads and drive better advertiser outcomes" (Meta Engineering, December 2024). TikTok suggests three to five creatives per ad group and says it is "always better to use creatives with big differences, especially when testing" (TikTok creative best practices). The case for segment variety on automated campaigns is in creative is the targeting now.
Generated production changes the cost per segment. At AI Vidia the process starts with the brief on day 0, approves style references, character locks and a shot list on day 2, and puts the first batch up for review on day 3, with finished files by day 7. A written product fact sheet is signed off before anything is generated, and a creative director checks every file before the client sees it. The animal on screen is locked as a character, so the same senior retriever appears across a whole set of variants.
Image generated with AI: a vertical ad frame for one segment, an older dog getting up in the morning, as it would appear in a feed.
Volume changes what you learn. When the senior variants beat the master on cost per purchase, the next brief writes itself; when they lose, you have learned it for the price of a batch instead of a shoot. Our AI video ad production is built for that weekly rhythm, and the pet brand page shows what the work looks like.
A first segment test for the next 30 days
Start smaller than 80. Pick three life stages where your range already has a product, write and clear five claims for each, and produce ten variants per segment for Meta and TikTok. Run them against your current master creative on the same budget, and judge them on cost per purchase and on the share of buyers who trade up to a higher-value product.
If the segment variants win, add size and health need as the next layers and let the claim library grow with them. The creative testing matrix shows how to split cells so the result means something.
If you want an outside team to make the first round, the Control Test is built for exactly this: 10 variants built to beat your current best ad, run in your own account for 14 days and measured on one metric agreed up front.
Today's task takes 20 minutes. List every product you sell down one side of a page and the four life stages across the top, tick the cells where a product exists, then circle each ticked cell that no live ad speaks to. Those circles are the segments to score first.
Frequently asked questions
01Is the pet food market still growing in 2026?
The pet food market is growing in value more than in owners. In Germany the share of pet households fell from 47% in 2020 to 43% in 2025, while store sales of pet food held at about EUR 4.3 billion. In the US, APPA puts 2025 pet industry spending at USD 158 billion, up 3.7%, with roughly 2 points of its 2026 growth forecast driven by inflation.
02How did Covid affect pet ownership?
Covid pulled pet acquisitions forward more than it grew the pet population. The PDSA estimated 5.4 million dogs, cats and rabbits were acquired in the UK after March 2020, yet found no statistically significant rise in the population, because many new pets replaced ones that died or were given up. Germany's 2020 gain of almost a million pets had reversed by 2025.
03How do pet food brands grow when pet numbers are flat?
Pet food brands grow by raising spend per household: senior and functional formulas, wet toppers, treats and subscriptions. Chewy shows the pattern in its filings, with active customers up 3.2% and net sales per active customer up 36% from fiscal 2021 to 2025. Each of those moves needs an ad that speaks to the specific animal and need.
04Can a pet food ad say it helps with arthritis?
A pet food ad cannot claim to prevent, treat or cure arthritis. In the EU, Regulation (EC) No 767/2009 Article 13(3) prohibits disease claims for feed, while a substantiated line such as supports healthy joints is allowed. In the US, the FDA treats a product intended to improve joint function in an arthritic dog as a drug.
05How many ad variants does a pet food brand need?
A pet food brand needs enough variants to give each priority segment its own opening and claim. There is no fixed number: TikTok suggests three to five creatives per ad group with big differences between them. A practical start is three life stages with about ten variants each, tested against the current master ad on the same budget.
How we made this article
Sources were read on 13 October 2026. German figures come from the IVH and ZZF household survey (7,000 households 2019 to 2021, 5,000 from 2022), Chewy figures from its 10-K filings, and the percentage changes are our arithmetic in nominal dollars. The 80-segment matrix and the scorer are AI Vidia's planning method, not a measured test.
We research and draft with AI assistance and check figures against the sources below.
