Indian Broiler Group-owned pet food company Drools Pet Food, which claims a market share of 38% in India, has an ambitious target of doubling its business in the country in the next two years. The company, which closed fiscal year 2022 with a turnover of ₹360 crore, also plans to expand its international footprint across 50 countries, from the current 22, said a top executive. At present, some of the major overseas markets Drools exports to include Australia, Israel and the UAE. It expects to start export to Russia this year and the United States in the next few years, said CEO Shashank Sinha.
“India will continue to be a fast-growing market for us, exhibiting a CAGR of 40%. We want to be the number one player in the next few years,“ said Sinha.
The 12-year-old company makes about 7,200 tons of pet foods a month across its three facilities. Its competitors include Pedigree-maker Mars Petcare, which is the largest player in the market, as well as Nestle India now after it bought Purina Petcare India for about ₹125 crore, last year.
Sinha said covid gave a strong push to the pet food business, but there is a very big untapped market. “Only about 7% of all pets in India are given dry food, while others are on a home diet. We expect this number will double in the coming years,” Sinha said.
One of the issues for the growth of pet food brands has been the higher cost, as dry pet foods often tend to cost more than even human grains or food. Many of the traditional pet food businesses use chicken and its byproducts to make their dry food.
“For a middle-class Indian family, sometimes these products can get expensive. So, we began with small packs which start at around ₹10, so that the barrier to entry is very less,” Sinha added. A large number of pet owners in India prefer dogs, while about 15% are estimated to have cats, as per industry estimates.
“The cat population is growing now, I expect that market to grow for us in the bigger cities like Maharashtra, where living spaces are getting smaller,” said Sinha.
In India, the company still gets more orders from the south while the north is a growing market. The company also relies on quick commerce to serve its clients as it started about eight months ago with a few quick commerce players and has seen a large increase in its business due to that.
“Quick commerce is growing very fast for us, as a whole. Many times, pet food is a very last-minute buy for pet parents and they don’t always want to wait for orders on traditional channels. With dark stores coming in, we are seeing a big growth coming from this. The under-10- or 20-minute deliveries are creating habits in customers and we are observing some of the slower commerce players falling out of favour because of this in the pet food category,” Sinha added.
Drools has used actors such as Hrithik Roshan, and Kareena Kapoor Khan as brand ambassadors, but it has largely remained focused on digital advertising. “If we do mass media advertising, the return on investments doesn’t work for us. Not every person who will see our ads will be pet parents, so digital gives us better yields,” he added. About 11% of its revenues are spent on its marketing budget.
In 2021, pet food accounted for ₹3,143.03 crore of the market while pet products took ₹558.96 crore of the pie, according to research company Euromonitor International. The industry grew at 15% CAGR from 2016 to 2021 but is now projected to grow at 30% CAGR in 2021-26.
