Marginal increase in the previous year

This was announced by IVH, the trade association for the pet supplies industry. Whilst the pet supply market remained stable with sales of  € 761 million,  the market for pet food experienced an increase of € 2.22 billion or 1.6 per cent. The largest sector is still the cat food market which rose by 2.9 per cent to € 1.045 billion. Dog food, the second largest sector, rose by 0.4 per cent to € 928 million and could hold the high market level.
The small pets sector experienced extremely dynamic growth because rats or ferrets became popular new pets, says IVH.  With an increase of 10.5 per cent and sales of € 95 million this sector for the first time surpassed the sector ornamental bird food which fell by 9.2 per cent to € 89 million.  The market for ornamental fish food (including pond food) also showed exceptionally high growth with an increase of 3.3 per cent to € 63 million.
The various developments in the individual sectors also have an impact on the pet supplies market: cats showed a moderate increase of 2.1 per cent to € 145 million, marked increases were noted in the sectors ornamental fish (up 4.4 per cent to € 189 million) and small pets (up 4.3 per cent to € 72 million) and in the dog sector sales were consistent (€ 121 million). On the other hand, sales were noticeably low in the sector ornamental birds (down 8.5 per cent to € 54 million) and cat litter showed a deficit of 4.8 per cent, down to € 180 million.
There is little news to report regarding the development of distribution channels. Although the supplies sector further expanded with € 654 million (86 per cent) and specialist shops gained in importance, the most important distribution channel for pet food is still the food retail sector (including chemists and discount stores) with € 1,510 million (68 per cent).
As part of an in-depth survey about pet keeping in Germany, the IVH developed a new comprehensive investigation process to capture population figures and socio-demographical data. This method guarantees the highest degree of accuracy that is currently possible, according to IVH. By applying this process, precise data could be obtained for the year 2003. The results of the survey show that the dog population remained constant with 5 million, the number of cats increased by 1.4 per cent to 7.3 million compared with 2002. The population of small pets increased by 1.7 per cent to 5.9 million, ornamental birds, on the other hand, decreased by 2.1 percent to 4.6 million. In addition, there…