Zou Songdi: big business opportunities for hairy children pet products have a bright future

Zou Songdi: big business opportunities for hairy children pet products have a bright future

On May 10, the Hong Junpei Culture and Education Foundation invited Zou Songdi, director of the Pet Food and supplies Business Association of the Republic of China, to give a lecture on 'Pet Food Innovation Breakthrough'. Chairman Zou shared his experience with his years of experience in the pet food and supplies and service industry, and the audience benefited a lot.

In recent years, with the changes in population structure and life style, and under the influence of interpersonal alienation and emotional restructuring, fewer children, aging and other factors, a trend of pet breeding has sprung up in Taiwan. the number of pet shops, pet beauty and animal hospitals is also increasing year by year. According to the largest number of pet dogs and cats, the number has reached more than 1.6 million. If ornamental fish, birds, rabbits, mice and other pets are included, the overall market scale of pet feed, pet supplies, pet beauty and other related products is considerable.

The importance and role of pets in the eyes of modern people are completely different from those in the past. the previous motivation for raising dogs is mostly focused on functional uses, and the main purpose of raising dogs is for practical purposes such as housekeeping and anti-theft. The relationship between modern people and pets has long been divorced from the instrumental and master-slave relationship. Pets are regarded as family members, partners, and even as their own. With the closer relationship between pets and owners, the demand for pet industry to provide all kinds of pet goods and services is also expanding day by day, and the pet industry covers a wide range of areas, including live pets, food, supplies, medical care, health care and services, etc. All the daily life needs of pets, such as food, clothing, housing, transportation, care, entertainment, and even postmortem treatment, belong to the pet industry. Corresponding to the epitome of the human industry, the market demand of the pet industry is growing year by year, and it is estimated that Taiwan has an annual output value of more than NT $20 billion.

In the face of the fast-growing global pet market, in addition to the traditional pet breeding and buying and selling industry, the pet industry is divided into pet food, pet supplies and pet service sub-industries. among them, pet food includes pet feed, snacks and snacks, the types and needs of pet products are relatively more diverse, while pet services include pet medical care, pet beauty and pet training. And many new industries developed in recent years, such as pet insurance, pet life memorial and so on.

With the development of the global pet market, according to the size of the market, pet food accounts for the largest proportion of the market, followed by pet products and services. Whether it is pet food or products, the world's major pet market is still concentrated in North America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia and other developed countries, accounting for 85% of the global pet market. In Eastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America, although the pet market is still in the early stages of development and the market scale is limited, with the growth of emerging market economies, the increase in national consumption power, the increase in the number of pet breeding and other factors, the penetration rate of pet products has increased rapidly. it still has great potential for growth, such as Chinese mainland in major countries.

The scale of Taiwan's pet industry is small, and its industrial capital is on the low side. More than 80% of them are small and medium-sized enterprises. At present, traditional professional pet stores account for 80% of the total. They are pet stores that boast fewer items but are more professional.

In recent years, the problem of pet euthanasia is often put on the big screen, and the live breeding industry is the upstream of the pet industry, but because the products sold and sold are live animals, animal protection and related moral issues are often involved in the process of breeding, production and sale, which is a relatively controversial pet industry, and the management is also the most difficult. At present, although the breeding, trading, and foster care of specific pets in Taiwan have been regulated by the Animal Protection Law, in the face of price-cutting competition from illegal operators, if consumers only take cheap prices as the main consideration, animal protection units strongly advocate adoption instead of the concept of purchase, but consumers' mentality and concept of keeping pets also need continuous education.

In recent years, 70% of the expenditure on pet food and supplies is the largest in Taiwan's pet consumption market. The main reason for the growth of Taiwan's market is that the number of pets is growing and Taiwanese people are willing to spend more and more on pets. Owners hope to provide pets with a better and better life. In response to this demand, pet shops began to position their pets at children, and most of the owners were consumers with good spending power, and some owners even reflected their own consumption patterns to their pets, so pet products began to appear. For example, pet snacks, pet toys, pet clothing, pet cleaning products and so on, this change is nothing more than to see the huge business opportunities behind these pets. It also reflects that the "psychological needs" of the owners far exceed the "physiological needs" of the animals.

In recent years, the production of pet products in Taiwan has been gradually transformed to emphasize functional and design-conscious products. From the expansion of the scale of the pet products exhibition in Taiwan, we can feel the vigorous development of the pet products market.

In the pet food market, due to the late start of the domestic pet food industry, there is still mainly imported pet food in the market. at present, the market share of domestic pet food is still low, and most of the rest are foreign brands, and domestic operators still have room for efforts. For the pet food industry, food safety should be the primary consideration. Baolu pet food, for example, was the brand with the highest share of dog food market in Taiwan before 2004, but dog food poisoning broke out because the factory was contaminated with melamine. a large number of dogs died of severe kidney failure caused by eating the product. Since then, the product market share and brand reputation have been greatly affected. In 2009, the market share of dog and cat feed brands in Taiwan has dropped to the fourth place. However, at present, most of Taiwan's pet food industry relies on imports for the source of raw materials, and its control is relatively insufficient, so the safety control of raw materials should be strengthened. Differentiated and diversified products will be the key for major enterprises and brands to gain market.

In order to comply with the development trend of the global pet service industry, the pet service industry in Taiwan has become more and more expensive, and has gradually developed from a personalized business model to an integrated one. In addition to the most mature pet medical care, emerging pet services such as pet beauty, pet training, pet hotels, pet restaurants, and pet (babysitting) classes are also becoming more and more popular in Taiwan. As Taiwan's pet health care system becomes more and more complete, other related peripheral services will be extended in the future, such as pet insurance, health services, and so on.

However, with the exception of pet health care, which belongs to an industry with a higher barrier to entry, the rest of the emerging pet service industry requires a relatively small amount of capital and a low barrier to entry, among which pet beauty is the most prosperous emerging pet service industry in Taiwan. As the emerging pet service industry is not yet sound in the management system, it is easy to have an industrial gap. Take the pet beauty industry as an example, although new entrants can obtain a license after training and certification such as folk pet beauty, livestock and dog associations, but at present, the certification system seems to be too rampant, and it is difficult to distinguish the professionalism and credibility of the association responsible for certification, so it is easy to cause the quality of the operators to be mixed.

Apart from the above explanation, there are also many emerging pet industries in Taiwan. We will review or formulate relevant management standards or measures at an appropriate time according to management needs. To sum up, although the individual scale of Taiwan's pet industry is small, it has great flexibility, high mobility, innovative ability and high-quality human resources, and Taiwan has a free and open economic and trade environment and multiculturality. it will also help to create a more diverse, distinctive, happy and value-added pet industry, which will have great competitive advantage and development potential in Asian countries in the future.

Zou Songdi, chairman of the Pet Food and supplies Business Association, small file:

Chairman Zou Songdi is currently the chairman of Yongli Trading Co., Ltd., the chairman of Yongli (Shanghai) Biotechnology Co., Ltd., the chairman of the Pet Food and supplies Business Association of the Republic of China, and the supervisor of the National Chamber of Commerce of the Republic of China.

▲ Zou Songdi: big business opportunities for hairy children pet products have a bright future