The first canned foods for dogs were produced in the USA. Marketable production in the UK began in the 1930s when the Chappel Brothers began canning a meat and cereal food for dogs. The pet industry is a vast and rapidly-growing market. In the past ten years, the industry has experienced unparalleled growth from $23 billion to over $50 billion.  The pet population is quite high in the present era and nearly 85% of all pet owners feed their pet’s processed pet food at least once a week. Pet food is one of the most important market sectors. However, prepared pet food accounts only for approximately 60% of the dogs, and 65% of the cat’s regular calorific intake. Nearly 90 % of pet owners spent equal or more on their pets during the latest recession period. To ensure that their pets lead a comfortable lifestyle some of the owners are giving up their luxuries. Mostly in the field of pet foods, dog training and pet care expenditures have risen from $5 billion to $7 billion within the past four years with major growth now forecasted for the next five years.

With number of market drivers and product innovations in pet foods, the North America pet food market is forecasted to reach USD 26.6 billion in 2017 at the CAGR of 3.5% from 2012 to 2017. Europe market being the second largest consumer of pet foods is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.4% from 2012 to 2017.The top pet food companies are Mars Inc., Nestle SA, Colgate- Palmolive, Procter& Gamble, Del Monte foods, C& T foods, Agrolimen SA, Un-charm Corp., Hill’s pet nutrition Nutriara Alimentos Ltda and Total Almentos SA. Dry food is the biggest segment of pet foods market accounting for around 38% of the total market share. In the pet food segment, snacks account for the second most consumed pet food with a market share of 23%. Wet or canned food and nutritious food is the smaller pet food segment accounting for 8% and 4% market shares respectively.

Nowadays, pet owners want their pets to benefit from natural, healthy and organic flavorful ingredients. Keeping this in mind, the manufacturers are keeping up with this trend. Exotic new proteins are being introduced to target their overall well-being. Some high-end manufacturers have moved away from using soy, corn and wheat to rice and other grains which is easy to digest and cause fewer allergies.