Lara Moody, Executive Director for the Institute for Feed Education and Research (IFEEDER), took time out of her busy day to visit with our own Farm Reporter, Maci Carter.
IFEEDER is the research and education foundation that supports the American Feed Industry Association (AFIA). Every three to five years, IFEEDER meets with AFIA, the Pet Food Institute, and the North American Renderers Association to swap data on all U.S. dog and cat food sales. The data is used to reverse engineer the ingredients used in all of the products to highlight the importance of pet foods to the rest of the agricultural industry.
“It’s really important for the industry to be able to understand the value that pet food brings to the broader agricultural economy,” Moody explained. “For example, in the pet food space, our manufacturers purchase about 9.8 million tons of ingredients that are worth about 13.2 billion dollars in value.”
Rowing further upstream, Moody explained that the corn used in pet food had to have fertilizer and other inputs applied to it, bringing the economic impact up by about another 9.6 billion dollars.
“There’s a pretty significant upstream impact that the pet food economy has,” she stated.
The report generated by the data also examines trends for ingredient use, the top item for both dog and cat food being chicken and chicken by-products. Milled and whole grains compose the second most popular ingredient, followed by beef and beef products, then marine-based ingredients.
“Marine-based ingredients were pretty interesting for us this time,” she noted. “Since COVID, we have seen more pet owners thinking about how they could treat their animals better and allow them to eat more like themselves. We are seeing trends toward some higher value, more premium or select ingredients, like beef and chicken, but also a doubling in marine-based ingredients.”
The ingredient ratings given were volume-based, but when rated by value, marine-based products move to the top of the list, specifically salmon and cod. Second is beef, then chicken, milled grains, and then whole grains.
The economic impact of the pet food on the United States economy is quite significant. Moody explained that 7.6 billion tons of material are sold to pet food ingredient suppliers that are working with farmers. Inputs sold to farmers to produce the material are measured at 9.8 billion tons, and 13.2 billion tons of ingredients are sold to pet food manufacturers. All of this equates to $51 billion of sales in the pet food space.
The full report touting these numbers and more information can be found at ifeeder.org.
