They often self mockingly say, "I eat a 9.9 yuan meal and give my pet 50 yuan per pound of cat food

This is not just a joke, but pet owners are willing to pay a high price for trust and safer, nutritious, and reliable cat and dog food. In order to meet the increasingly stringent standards of pet owners, pet food manufacturers have also rolled up formulas and processes in order to win a place in the fierce market competition.

In the past decade, domestic brands have gradually established a foothold in the pet market, and pet owners are no longer blindly pursuing imported brands. The acceptance of domestic brands has also continued to increase. However, the chaos in the pet food market has also been repeatedly exposed. Resolving trust issues through product research and development innovation and quality monitoring remains a mandatory course for domestic brands.

Recently, domestic pet food brand Maifudi has come up with a new trick by launching a big data center to study the nature of cats and dogs that cannot speak, attempting to fill the gap with imported brands in basic research.

In today's pet food market, which is entering a price war, can Maifudi, which continuously enhances its technological strength, win a broader market?

Launching a big data center to study cats and dogs that cannot speak

In recent years, the pet food market has experienced a wave of technological innovation. Compared to the technological accumulation of imported brands in the field of puffed food, domestic brands do not have an advantage. However, the emergence of baked goods (editor's note: compared to high-temperature and high-pressure puffing processes, low-temperature baking often better preserves natural nutrients such as protein, which is more suitable for pets with high protein needs) has broken this situation and provided an opportunity for domestic brands to overtake on the bend. Since 2019, domestic brands have launched a series of new products such as baked goods, air dried goods, and wet goods, gradually establishing a foothold in the high-end market. In this competition with foreign brands, breakthroughs in new technologies have become the key to the rise of domestic brands, and their market share continues to increase.

Data shows that in 2012, among the top ten companies in China's pet food industry, the market share of domestic brands was only 11.1%, while foreign brands reached as high as 25.9%. By 2024, the CR10 brand for pet food sales across all platforms will account for 19.96%, and the total market share of local brand sales will reach 15%. Among numerous brands, Maifudi has firmly secured the top spot. According to data from Jiuqian Consulting, in the online full platform sales of 50.231 billion yuan in the pet market in 2024, Maifudi ranked first with 2.016 billion yuan and a market share of 4.01%, while the French Royal had a full platform sales of 1.797 billion yuan and a market share of 3.58%. However, in the comprehensive competition of the pet food market, domestic brands still have significant shortcomings. For example, in the field of prescription food, global pet medical giant Royal has built a solid moat in the prescription food market with nearly 50 years of clinical research accumulation. The latest data for 2024 shows that Royal's repurchase rate in the urinary system disease prescription food segment market is as high as 78%, far exceeding the industry average of 45%. There is actually a hidden situation in the pet food industry behind this. "Domestic pet food companies' R&D investment is mainly focused on the palatability, external structure, and packaging of pet food, with weak basic research and insufficient R&D investment in core processes and nutritional balance. In terms of basic research, domestic manufacturers are still lagging behind international competitors," said Maifudi's parent company, Guaibao Pet, in its 2024 semi annual report. However, most domestic manufacturers follow the development path of "OEM transformation", gradually moving from OEM manufacturing to building their own brands. Although they have accumulated production experience in this process, they still show weakness in core technology research and development. In today's market where domestic brands have the ability to compete with imported brands, market competition has also entered a new stage. Qin Hua, Chairman of Guibao Pet, proposed that "as the global pet economy enters the trillion dollar era, real competition has shifted from products to the right to formulate rules." On March 5, 2025, Guibao Pet's independent brand Maifudi officially released the world's first dog and cat digital life database - Maifudi WarmData Dog and Cat Nature Research Big Data Center. It has taken a step forward in research and development capacity building, and plans to collect and analyze the collected dog and cat feeding data sources, summarize them into research and development data, and apply them to project development and management.