The ability of online retailers to undercut premium pet foods with their own brands threatens the profitability of pet food premiumization.

Private label pet foods from Amazon and Chewy threaten established brands by leveraging their online sales platform to boost visibility, wrote Gartner L2 analysts in the report “Digital IQ Index: Pet Care U.S. 2018.”  As more pet owners look to purchase pet food over the internet, online retailers increasingly have opportunities to boost exposure of their own brands by featuring those dog and cat foods in sponsored advertisements, on homepage displays and through other means. The ability of online retailers to undercut premium pet foods with their own brands threatens the profitability of pet food premiumization, which currently drives pet food sales value growth while volume growth stagnates. Read more.

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Wall, Tim. “Amazon, Chewy Private Label Pet Foods Threaten Profits.” PetfoodIndustry.com, PetfoodIndustry.com, 15 Oct. 2018, http://www.petfoodindustry.com/articles/7564-amazon-chewy-private-label-pet-foods-threaten-profits.

The lab that identified pentobarbital in Evanger’s dog food in 2017 has published details of the procedure researchers used to detect the barbiturate.

The lab that identified pentobarbital in Evanger’s dog food in 2017 has published details of the procedure researchers used to detect the barbiturate that was correlated to the death of one dog and sickening of others. Michigan State University scientists, led by John P. Buchweitz, developed “simple, yet efficient” method for the extraction and quantitative analysis of pentobarbital in dog food. Read more.

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Wall, Tim. “Pentobarbital Detection Finds Tiny Amounts in Pet Food.” PetfoodIndustry.com, PetfoodIndustry.com, 8 Oct. 2018, http://www.petfoodindustry.com/articles/7534-pentobarbital-detection-finds-tiny-amounts-in-pet-food.

Amazon expanded the range of exclusive dog foods and other pet products sold on the internet retail website.

Amazon expanded the range of exclusive dog foods and other pet products sold on the internet retail website, reported This Just In. Two more dog food brands are now sold only on Amazon: Solimo dry dog food and Simply Perfection wet dog food. These two brands sell at respectively lower and higher price points than Wag, the private label dry dog food Amazon released in May. Read more.

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Wall, Tim. “Amazon Launches Exclusive Value, Superpremium Dog Foods.” PetfoodIndustry.com, PetfoodIndustry.com, 28 Sept. 2018, http://www.petfoodindustry.com/articles/7514-amazon-launches-exclusive-value-superpremium-dog-foods.