Mars Petcare expects sales to jump 30% this year as lockdown pushes pet adoption

The largest pet food brand Mars Petcare, which controls over half the Rs 2,500-crore market, expects close to 30 per cent growth this year, driven by the lockdown that has increased adoption of pets. The domestic manufactured pet food market is only 5-6 per cent of the Rs 2,500 crore market catering to 2.5 crore pet dogs and 4.5 million cats. But this has the potential to grow over 20 times, says Ganesh Ramani, general manager of Mars Petcare India.

The market has been growing at around 15 per cent before the lockdown but is now growing at 18-20 per cent, while Mars expects 28-30 per cent growth this year, Ramani told .

The Hyderabad-based company closed 2019 with a turnover of over Rs 1,000 crore, which it expects to grow close to 30 per cent this year due to the lockdown demand.

He said pet adoption is going up since the lockdown, while the natural growth was led by nuclear families.

The lockdown has also seen prices going up by 10-15 per cent, he said.

There are around 2.5 crore pet dogs and 4.5 million pet cats in the country. He expects the pet food industry to grow over 20 times as only 5-6 per cent of the market is the manufactured food and the rest is met by home food.

Mars Inc has invested over Rs 2,000 crore in the country so far, for its chocolates, pet nutrition and human health food business here, after its entry in 2002 through imports. Since 2008 it operates a 15,000-tonne dry pet food plant on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

Looking at such large potential, Ramani said the company is planning to scale up its plant to manufacture wet and drip format food when the overall market grows which it expects to happen over the next four-five years.

Currently only dry food is locally made and wet formats and drip pet food is imported and overall it imports 15 per cent of its volume.

"We will manufacture wet and drip formats when the market reaches scale. Currently, 85 per cent of the pet food market is dog food, and the rest is cat food and our sales for both are growing at over 20 per cent since the lockdown," Ramani said .

In 2019, the dog and cat food market was over Rs 2,500 crore and Mars netted over Rs 1,000 crore of that market.

The second biggest player is Royal Canine, which is also a Mars brand but operates separately in the super premium category. The third player is Rools from Chhattisgarh that is primarily a poultry player, he said adding that recently Nestle also entered the market.

Mars sells brands like the flagship Pedigree, Chappi, and Iams dog food, and Whiskas and Sheba cat food, Dentastix, Biscrik, and Jumbone treats which are designed to fulfill pets' nutritional needs.

Over the past few years, the domestic pet food market has been growing. According to Euromonitor, domestic pet food market is expected to grow 8.8 per cent annually between 2019 and 2024.

During this period, dog food market is expected to clip at 17 per cent to reach Rs 4,540 crore by 2024, and cat food market is expected to rise at a 13 per cent to reach Rs 917 crore by 2024.