The global pet care market is exploding. Globally, more and more people have pets, which increases the demand for pet care products including food. According to this press release, "the global pet care market is worth US$ 199 Bn as of now and expected to reach US$ 338.5 Bn by the year 2031."
Pet parents view their animals as family and want to provide them with quality care. The problem here is that the industry is not interested in keeping animals well, the industry is interested in making money. And the more money, the better.
The press release states that, "The key players providing animal foodstuff like Mars Inc., Nestle S.A., and likewise are looking pressing on provision of products having calorific and nutritional value. Plus, they are going for flavored foodstuff for attracting pet owners." This would be good news IF those companies began producing food that was actually healthy for your pet. Instead, the same round and brown kibble will be marketed differently to demonstrate "calorific and nutritional value." While I would now never feed Sheldon anything produced by Mars Inc., Nestle, or anything else that is equivalent to fast food for dogs, their marketing people are brilliant.
Interestingly, the press release also stated "that pet dogs are contracting obesity... As per the American Animal Hospital Association, the year 2019 alone recorded more than 50% of the adult pet dogs as being ‘overweight’ amongst 1K hospitals in Benfield (US).
So even in a press release that is about how huge the pet industry is growing, there is mention of dog obesity. This is because there is a correlation between kibble and obesity as well as kibble and disease. The more we feed our dogs ultra-processed food, the sicker they will be come.
In fact, according to this study published in the National Library of Medicine, consumption of ultra-processed food in humans has increased worldwide and diets are "grossly nutritionally unbalanced, suggesting that the dietary contribution of these foods largely determines the overall nutritional quality of contemporaneous diets." The same is true for our dogs. This study concluded that "decreasing the dietary share of ultra-processed foods is a rational and effective way to improve the nutritional quality of US diets." This is also the same for our dogs.
If you are interested in learning more about why kibble and McDonald's food are similar, click here.