This happens to many people but is becoming more prominent among the millennial generation (those born between 1981 and 1996).

There is a generation that treats pets like their own children: Spending no money, even delaying becoming parents because of... pets - Photo 1.

Pet food prices have increased from an average of $1.71 per pound in 2011 to $2.55 per pound in 2017. Owners are increasingly pampering their pets. Total spending by pet owners in 2007 was $41.2 billion. Ten years later, that number increased to 69.5 billion USD.

Experts say the millennial generation (those born between 1981 and 1996) is treating their pets like their first children. According to a report by the Pew Research Center, millennials are 50% less likely to get married than previous generations.

They are delaying becoming parents. Instead, they become pet owners and spend more and more money on their pets.

According to Nielsen, annual household spending on pets increased 36% between 2007 and 2017. This shift has led to a host of new brands entering the market.

In 2017, 4,500 new pet food products were introduced, an increase of 45% over the previous year. Many new products appear on the market and are labeled as premium products.

Owners increasingly want to spend more money on their pets. At that time, the market was gradually saturated with more choices of high-end food brands serving these domestic animals.

“Premiumization is the idea that you can increase the perception of a product’s value by marketing, even just something very simple, like calling it that,” Cailin Heinze told Insider. is a premium diet for pets.”

“A premium diet doesn’t necessarily have to have anything that a non-premium diet doesn’t have, but rather highlights what it does have,” Heinze added.

A 2007 study conducted by the California Institute of Technology and Stanford University found that the price of a product can change our brain activity in how we perceive the product. Research shows that our brains equate more expensive products with better quality.

According to Heinze, there is not necessarily a nutritional difference between so-called premium pet food and the average pet food.

However, the way to market the product would be “A list of things that are not.” Meaning they market what their products do not contain: No corn, no wheat, no grains, no byproducts, no potatoes.

The list actually gets longer as claims are added that the product has no artificial preservatives or artificial colors. The problem is, for most of the things listed, there isn’t any evidence that either would be better, in Heinze’s opinion.

Hanbury told Insider that this marketing approach is related to the health craze at a time when people are taking what they eat extremely seriously. And the next thing when people stop thinking about themselves, they will obviously pay attention to the things closest to them. That’s the pet.

So if people are interested in organic food, they will also look for organic pet food. The more people see their pets as a “furry” member of the family, the more they will look for foods that are closest to what they eat for them.