High end pet food trends at Product of the Year Awards

High end pet food products reigned supreme at the Product of the Year Awards 2017. With more than 11,600 shoppers choosing the winners across 38 FMCG categories, Product of the Year is the world’s largest annual consumer-voted award for product innovation. Nestlé Purina Petcare’s two pet food offerings demonstrate another trend becoming more prevalent on 2017’s supermarket shelves: the rise of high-end pet food. Gourmet Cat Soup ensures felines can enjoy a taste experience in an innovative texture and format. In the dog care sector, Dentalife Daily Oral Care won the category for its multi-function dog chew, which helps clean teeth, freshen breath and reduce tartar, whilst also containing no artificial colours or flavours. In an increasingly saturated market, it’s clear that shoppers are opting for high-end pet care, and products that offer a strong point of difference triumph. “New products are constantly launched in the FMCG sector so it’s crucial that companies do something to stand out against competitors, such as the emerging trend for products with a strong environmentally-friendly footprint. "The Product of the Year logo enables companies to instantly differentiate themselves and winners can experience a sales increase of 10-15 percent, as shoppers trust it as a sure sign of an innovative product.” Mike Nolan, CEO of Product of the Year UK, is unsurprised the public voted a cat soup to come out on top of the awards' Cat Food category. He commented: "We're a nation of animal lovers, so it's little wonder that we demand the same qualities in our pets' food as we do our own. "It needs to be nutritious, without artificial colours, flavours or preservatives and, above all, delicious – Nestlé Purina's Gourmet Soup ticks all those boxes and so if the perfect addition to our cats' menus." He continued: "Cat soup has revolutionised the pet food category as it meets head on the demand for super-premiumisation. Cats love gravy and Gourmet Soup takes this concept up a notch, delivering quality meat and fish in a delicately refined broth." Kantar TNS one of the world’s leading research agencies conducted the research, offering an industry sector understanding and collating the survey from more than 11,600 people in the UK and Ireland.