SuperZoo Baird Team Takeaways

Baird’s Pet Care team spent August 16-18 in Las Vegas for the World Pet Association’s SuperZoo – billed as the most-attended pet industry trade show in North America. While most reported continued business momentum, ongoing softness in durable pet products and questions around the sustainability of continued growth as inflation moderates has many looking ahead to Q4 with a bit of unease.

Over the next several quarters all eyes will be on category performance across key industry segments – nutrition, products and services.  How these industry segments fare will be an important factor in near term prospects for industry M&A. Following are six key takeaways from our team as we head into the final quarter of 2023 and the beginning of 2024:

1. The price versus volume dynamic continues to unfold, calling into question the sustainability near term industry growth
2. Humanization has moved beyond diet – with an emerging focus on proactive health and wellness
3. Consumer education will be critical in driving adoption and supporting growth in emerging categories 
4. With the growing proliferation of pet data – the ‘connected pet’ wave is just beginning
5. Pet services – not dissimilar from consumer services more broadly – continue to drive pet care category growth
6. Industry consolidators eye a return of the M&A markets in earnest – albeit through a very discerning lens