Evolving the Pet Care Market
Musti Group operates as the leading Nordic pet care specialist in Finland, Sweden and Norway with a mission to make the life of pets and their parents easier, safer and more fun. The Company offers customers an end-to-end ecosystem of pet products and services across its brick-and-mortar retail chains as well as its online stores.
Our Global Investment Banking team recently spoke with Jeffrey David, chairman of the board of Musti Group, about the changes unfolding across today’s pet care market.
I think the most exciting thing is that the industry is continuing to evolve. We've got new consumers coming in and we've got the longevity of life of the animals leading to new types of care and support that we need to provide, which is requiring us to be innovative with our products and services offering.
Jeffrey David, Chairman of the Board
Key Takeaways
Focus on Wellbeing = Longer Lives for Pets
More and more households are benefiting from the relationship that they have with their pets. As more value is placed on that relationship, consumers are increasingly focused on providing a better lifestyle for their pet to help them live longer, healthier lives. The increased lifespan for pets, according to David, “is leading to differences in terms of the products that we need to provide for the health and wellbeing, the services that we need to have available to support these aged pets, etcetera.”
Younger Consumers Are Changing Channel Dynamics
As the Millennial and Gen Z generations become a larger percent of consumer spend, there is an increasing need to have a seamless experience between in store and online. This shift in in focus towards an omni-channel model, according to David, “has changed the nature of consumer engagement … [and is] creating some really interesting opportunities for people, for organizations to use the best of both worlds to connect with people.” The broader pet care market continues to adapt to this generational shift which is helping to fuel innovation in both products and services.
Building a Better Bowl
In the current market, there is no shortage of food types available to pet owners, and David sees consumers continuing to be more and more thoughtful about what they feed their animals. Just a decade ago, kibble was the pet food of choice. “Then we started to move into mixing kibble and cans together, and now … we're putting these human-grade foods on top as a topper to make the whole bowl more palatable and more interesting for the dog.”
Omnichannel Players Offering Services Have an Advantage
Competition across retailers for consumer wallet share is fierce. “There's real benefit from a consumer perspective when you've got an omni-operator putting digital and physical together and adding services. We can see that is increasing consumer spend.” David elaborates that the younger generations tend to leverage service offerings like grooming more often, so, when combined with greater digital interactions amongst younger generations, the omnichannel + services model is best suited to creating the strongest consumer relationships.
Connect With the Baird Global Investment Banking Team
Robert Foster
Emily Thies