PetFood PRO 3/2025

PACKAGING
Closing the Gap: Why Ethical
Pet Food must come in equally
Sustainable Packaging
Step into any pet shop in 2025 and a remarkable shift will quickly become apparent. Terms like ‘ethical’,
‘natural’, and ‘sustainable’ have become fundamental selling points for today’s brands. The drive towards
responsible consumption is fundamentally altering the packaging that pet food comes in and how it returns
to the environment, and as more eco-conscious pet owners increasingly hold brands accountable for the
sustainability of their products, it’s increasingly clear that an ethical pet food product is incomplete without
equally ethically, sustainability-focused packaging.
Photos: Parkside
The evolving pet food
consumer
Recent years have seen the pet food
industry move in lockstep with wider
trends in food made for human
consumption. Values-driven purchasing
is on the rise, with 76% of pet owners
claiming that environmental and ethical
concerns are important when choosing
which pet food to buy.
What exactly these values mean in the
context of pet food stretches far beyond
what goes into the bowl. More than half of
pet owners say it is important or extremely
important that the pet food they buy is
made by a company that demonstrably
cares about the environment, and 55%
claim to actively seek out brands using
more sustainable packaging.
In part this trend is being driven by
the growing humanisation of pets.
People treat their animals as cherished
family members and want food and its
packaging to reflect the values they
expect for themselves. Social media and
growing transparency around supply
chains means consumers now have
unprecedented access to how ‘natural’ a
brand truly is, from the ingredients that
go into its products to its carbon footprint
and plastic reduction efforts.
Closing the packaging gap
This heightening expectation has
unveiled an uncomfortable gap in many
companies’ sustainability stories. While
some pet food brands have made strides
sourcing organic, locally produced
ingredients or becoming carbon neutral,
in the case of many category leaders,
the final product is still delivered to the
consumer in conventional, petrochemicalbased
plastic packaging. Smaller brands
with clearly-defined ethical practices are
leading the way, while bigger players are
often lagging behind. This disconnect is
glaring for the values-driven shopper, who
sees the packaging as a direct extension
of a brand’s ethical commitments. This
means there is a huge opportunity for a
smaller brand to boost its market share
by appealing to these ethically-minded
consumers.
Today’s evidence-based, savvy pet owners
are not appeased by claims of recyclability
alone. Composite materials and plastic
films, although lightweight and functional,
are often unsuitable for recycling, leading
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