What Drives Pet Food Choices? A Systematic Literature Review

The global pet population has increased significantly over the last decade. As with the growing pet population, the pet food industry is also growing rapidly worldwide. Although new products continue to be developed and introduced in pet food markets every year, insights into consumer behaviour towards pet food products have remained largely under explored. This review aims to summarise the various drivers that affect pet owners’ purchase decisions of pet food products. Intrinsic and extrinsic product characteristics, psychological, biological and physiological, socio-cultural, and situational factors were identified as the key factors driving pet owners’ pet food purchase decisions. This work reveals a highly fragmented nature of the state-of-the-art in the field of consumer behaviours towards commercial pet food products, with most studies focusing on only several aspects of the drivers. It also provides the gaps in the extant literature and potential research directions for future consumer behavioural research in this domain.