The dog is a family member — but we almost never check the price of its food
The pet food market is worth billions, premium brands are sold through various channels, and in Israel the same bag can cost tens of percent more from store to store. An investigation reveals where the price gaps are created and why we almost never compare prices here.
Once upon a time, there was dog food. One bag, maybe two, you put it in a bowl and move on. Today, it is enough to enter a store specializing in animals to understand that this is a completely different world: food for puppies, for adults, for seniors, for small dogs, large, sensitive, obese, allergic, with digestive problems, joint problems, skin and fur. Chicken, lamb, salmon, grain-free, high-protein, premium, super-premium, medical food and food that promises almost everything except teaching the dog to prepare its own dinner.
And this is not by chance. The pet is no longer just an animal living in the yard or in a corner of the house. It has become part of the family, and when someone becomes a family member, we also start spending money on them differently.
In the United States alone, spending on pets reached about $158 billion in 2025, and the forecast for 2026 is already about $165 billion. Out of this amount, tens of billions of dollars go to food and treats. In Europe, too, it is a huge market. Hundreds of millions of pets live in European homes, and almost half of households have at least one pet.
In Israel, more than 636,000 dogs are already registered. The real number of households raising animals is, of course, much higher, because there is no similar database that centralizes all cats and other pets. And yet, despite the big money, this is one of the categories we almost never talk about in consumer terms.
We know the price of the new iPhone, compare cars, check mortgage interest rates and sometimes drive to another supermarket to save on the shopping basket. But for a bag of dog food that costs 250, 300 or 400 shekels, we ask far fewer questions.
Many brands on the shelf, few companies behind them
Anyone standing in front of a dog or cat food shelf can get a sense of a very diverse market: dozens of names, packages, colors, types of meat and promises. But behind a large part of the global market, there are actually two giants.
Mars holds about 21.7% of the global market and Nestlé Purina about 20.7%. Together they control more than 42% of the pet food market in the world. Mars owns, among others, Royal Canin, Pedigree, Whiskas, Sheba and Cesar, while Nestlé owns through Purina brands like Pro Plan, Purina ONE, Felix and Friskies.
And this is an important point for understanding the market: the same manufacturer can sell us several completely different brands, each for a different audience, at a different price and through a different sales channel. The cheaper brand is in the supermarket, the premium brand goes to the specialty store and the medical brand gets a boost from the veterinary channel. This is not by chance. This is a strategy.
Royal Canin is a good example of this. The brand was built for years as a professional, scientific and nutrition-focused brand, and it is distributed largely through specialty stores, professional channels and veterinary clinics. And it works. Once a product is not in every supermarket, a differentiation is created around it. It is less perceived as just another bag of food and more as a professional product.
It can be compared to the world of coffee. Nestlé can sell Nescafé almost anywhere, but Nespresso was built as a completely different system, with capsules, machines, a shopping experience and a premium perception. Here too, the message is similar: if the product is everywhere, it becomes just another product. If it is kept in a certain channel, a higher value can be built around it.
The same food, different price
Here the real consumer question begins. In a survey conducted by the Retail Research Institute in several chains specializing in animals, prices of some of the main brands were checked.
Hill's for small dogs, 3 kg, is sold at prices between 120 and 149 shekels, a gap of more than 24%. Pro Plan Adult Chicken, 14 kg, is sold between 259 and 290 shekels. Royal Canin Adult weighing 15 kg ranges from 359.10 to 379 shekels. In Acana Classic Chicken, 9.6 kg, a gap of 41 shekels was already found: 255 shekels in the cheap place compared to 296 shekels in the expensive place.
And then you get to Bonzo. The same bag of Bonzo meat for dogs, 3 kg, is sold at Rami Levy and Yohananof for 44.90 shekels. At Zolo the price was almost identical - 44.91 shekels. But at Mahsanei HaShuk the price was 49.90 shekels, at Tiv Taam 53.90, at Shufersal 54.90 and at AniPet 65 shekels. The exact same product, a gap of almost 45%. There is no difference here in the formula, quality or country of production. The same bag, just a different checkout.
The supermarket is not always more expensive
Also, the assumption that a specialty store should be the more profitable place to buy food for animals is not always true. A specialty store can offer a larger selection, advice, professional products and sometimes brands that do not exist at all in food chains. But when it comes to products sold in both channels, there is no reason to assume that the specialty store is cheaper.
For example, in Purina ONE Mini Adult Beef and Rice, 1.5 kg, a significant gap was found. Rami Levy and Shufersal sold the product for 49.90 shekels. Yohananof, Keshet and Mahsanei HaShuk already reached 59.90 shekels, Carrefour to 60.50 and Tiv Taam to 62.30 shekels. Almost 25% difference on the same product.
In every chain we will find the promoted and preferred brand, but the main differentiation between a food chain and a dedicated chain is that in the dedicated chain they know how to transfer and direct buyers to products that the chain wants, prefers and earns from, something that is harder to do in a food chain.
And when it comes to a product that is bought again and again throughout the year, the difference no longer remains ten or twenty shekels. It turns into hundreds of shekels.
In the supermarket you buy "food", in the specialty store "nutrition"
Here the real differentiation between the channels begins. In food chains we will usually find the more mass-market products, those that suit a wide audience and allow the chain to hold a category at an accessible price. But many of the market's super-brands, and especially premium products and medical products, are found mainly in specialty stores and professional channels.
This is how two almost separate categories are actually created. In the supermarket we buy "dog food". In the specialty store we start buying "dog nutrition". And this transition between the words is worth a lot of money.
When the veterinarian says, we don't argue
One of the most influential people on our choice is the veterinarian. When the veterinarian says that the dog needs food that is suitable for a digestive problem, allergy, kidneys or weight, most dog owners do not start doing market research. They buy.
And this is natural. It is about the health of an animal we love. But precisely because of this, questions should be asked: is a certain type of food required or specifically a certain brand? Are there alternatives? Is the same product sold in other places? And is the price different?
The veterinarian should be a source of professional knowledge, but the consumer should still remain a consumer. The greater the influence of the professional factor, the greater the importance of transparency.
And what does "super-premium" really mean?
The category is also full of brands that sound international and very impressive. A name in English, packaging with a picture of fresh meat, the words Premium, Super Premium, Natural or Sensitive, and sometimes also a story about nature, health and quality.
But it is not always a large company that owns a factory and a research system. In some cases, it is a brand built for an importer, distributor or chain and made for them at a factory that produces many other brands in parallel.
There is not necessarily a problem with this. In Europe, there is a huge industry of producing private labels for pet food, and many of them are very high quality. But the consumer needs to know what they are buying: who owns the brand, who produces it, in which country, whether the manufacturer remains constant and what the word "super-premium" actually means. Because sometimes the definition on the bag is more marketing than a standard.
Private brands already hold about 34% of the pet food market in the six largest economies in Europe, and they have long since stopped being satisfied with being the cheap product. They offer adaptation to age, size, sensitivity, functional ingredients and products that look and sound no less "premium" than the big brands.
In other words, what happened in our supermarket is starting to happen in the dog's bowl too. The retailer understands that if the consumer is willing to trust them with coffee, pasta and cleaning supplies, they can try to win their trust with pet food too.
Love should not cancel price comparison
This is perhaps the most important question: why do we almost never compare? We talk endlessly about the prices of phones, cars, flights and electrical appliances. But a family raising a dog can spend thousands of shekels a year just on food, even before vaccines, veterinarian, treatments, toys, treats, a barbershop and a boarding kennel.
And yet, quite a few consumers stay for years with the same store, the same brand and the same price. There is a lot of emotion in this. We are afraid to do experiments with the dog. If it likes the food, if it feels good and if the veterinarian hasn't said otherwise, we prefer not to touch. The manufacturers know this, the stores know this, and the brands are built exactly on this loyalty.
The goal is not to look for the cheapest food. Good food should suit the animal, its age, its health and its needs. But after we have chosen the right product, there is no logic in paying 20%, 30% or 45% more for it just because we didn't check the price.
And this is perhaps the most important thing that came out of the check: the dog doesn't know if the bag was bought in a luxury store, in a supermarket or on an internet site. It also doesn't know how much we paid for it. We do.
And before we compare the price of the next iPhone or start haggling over another thousand shekels in the price of the car, it might be worth starting to check also those hundreds of shekels that we leave every month next to the food bowl. Because love for a pet should not become an exemption from price comparison.
