Health-conscious consumers understand that supplements can support their own well-being—and that supplements may help their pets live longer, healthier lives, too. Research shows that there is tremendous overlap in purchasing patterns for human and animal supplements: Customers who look for supplements with substantiated clinical data, clean ingredient labels, and quality seals in their own nutrition products are looking for similar standards in pet supplements and functional treats.
The challenge for retailers is how to vet for quality and safety in the pet products you carry in an industry that is largely unregulated. Currently, pet supplements do not fall under the purview of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). The FDA's position is that the act does not apply to animals. There is also no official governing body regulating pet supplements or pet supplement marketing claims. Quality standards for are largely undefined and subjective.
That means the responsibility of holding the line on quality and safety falls to the industry itself. As retailers, I encourage you to take an active role in raising the bar by demanding that the brands you carry meet certain criteria, including following Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), using third-party testing and certification and conducting regular safety and toxicity studies. My number one piece of advice is to focus on quality and research any new pet brand or products as much as you would any other new product you carry.
In the companies I founded, Zesty Paws and Carson & Bear, we try to lead by example. We take the quality and GMP requirements that are applied to human nutrition products and apply them to pet nutrition. Carson & Bear products are manufactured and packaged in an FDA registered and inspected facility. Our manufacturer is compliant with 21 CFR Part 117 providing compliance to manufacture human food products. We do safety and toxicity studies for every product we launch. Doing any less is a disservice to what our brands stand for and what we as an industry should pursue. I encourage all supplement manufacturers to be more diligent about claims they make and be able to provide some proof of product safety and quality.
In addition, I recommend looking for products that feature branded ingredients. I created a company called Trust Transparency with the idea that the ingredient community needed to be more transparent, and branded ingredients became a significant and valuable tool to create that transparency.
Products that carry the quality seal from the National Animal Supplement Council (NASC) are also a safer bet. This nonprofit coalition has strict quality standards for raw material sourcing and manufacturing practices and it requires products that carry its seal to pass a rigorous third-party quality edit every two years. The NASC also does random independent testing of products to ensure they are meeting their label claims.
Ideally, I would advise looking for products with clinical backing, but we are not there yet as an industry. I believe investing in clinical trials for pet products is the next step in raising industry standards and consumer trust.
Pet Supplement Trends
Joint and mobility lead the way in pet supplements, but there’s growing interest in probiotics, as well supplement support for immunity, allergy relief, weight management and anxiety relief. Interestingly, a MarketPlace report looked at the pet supplement market and found different focuses for dogs and cats:
Dog owners
40% buy products for joint health
37% buy skin and coat supplements
10% buy urinary and kidney supplements
Cat owners
31% want help for skin and coat
24% seek joint health supplements
22% buy urine and kidney supplements
