The growing number of pet owners and the increasing emphasis on the quality of life of pets have driven the vigorous development of China's pet economy. Data shows that in 2024, the size of the urban (dog and cat) consumer market will exceed 300 billion yuan, and the number of dogs and cats will exceed 120 million. In the cake of pet economy, pet food occupies a large part. Poor quality pet food not only threatens the life and health of "furry children", but also affects the healthy development of the pet economy.

In the eyes of pet owning families, choosing nutritious, healthy, and cost-effective food for pets can be quite challenging. Many consumers have learned various skills during the process of raising pets, such as checking the brand, place of origin, ingredient list, etc. As the old saying goes, 'What you buy doesn't sell well.' The chaos of pet food revealed in news reports is simply beyond defense. You can read the ingredient list, right? They can label ingredient lists according to the needs of merchants, and the protein content cannot be accurately calculated. The advertised "fresh meat" is actually cheap meat powder. Order based on the reputation of the place of origin, right? They directly tampered with the origin information. As for the many miraculous effects mentioned in the promotion, they are actually 'completely ineffective'. Even worse, using inferior corn as raw material, in order to avoid excessive levels of aflatoxin causing pet diarrhea, montmorillonite is added

In addition to raising pets at home, many pet lovers also purchase large amounts of pet food to donate to stray animal farms. Low price pet food is often the first choice due to its high cost-effectiveness. In this way, donations that were originally made out of love and goodwill will also be distorted by "black hearted food" into harm to animals.

The emergence of inferior pet food indicates that there are irregularities, strictness, and inadequacy in various aspects of enterprise management, product inspection, advertising, offline market supervision, and online platform monitoring. After being exposed by the media, the local authorities took swift action and implemented a series of disposal measures, which was certainly necessary. But more importantly, it is necessary to establish more comprehensive institutional mechanisms and implement them as normalized supervision.

In fact, in any industry, the production side pursues low cost and high profit, while consumers crave high quality and low price. Market regulation is precisely to draw a reasonable boundary between these two demands, so that the industry can sustainably develop on a benign track. It should also be noted that China has traditionally combined the pet industry with animal husbandry for regulation, and regulated pet food as a type of feed. Despite the continuous improvement and development of relevant laws and regulations, there are still shortcomings in industry regulation, and the veterinary, veterinary, and feed standard management systems do not need to fully adapt to the practical needs of pet ownership. After all, pets are companions for many people, and pet consumption is more of an emotional consumption for humans.

To improve the quality of pet food, it is necessary to establish more comprehensive institutional mechanisms and establish industry standards with mandatory force. The trust of pets in their owners is unconditional, while the trust of consumers in the market is conditional. This trust comes from the compliance of enterprises, the quality of products, the improvement of supervision, and the deterrence of laws.