China's Dairy and Snack Groups Move Into Pet Food

Executive Summary#

Get the Full Report: Download the complete analysis for detailed data, methodology, and pages of insights.

---

Several of China's largest dairy, snack and agribusiness groups have moved into pet food in recent years, through their own brands, new subsidiaries and investments in younger pet companies. Yili sells pet food under its eBorn (依宝) brand through its subsidiary Kangyijia, Bright Dairy launched the Guangming Youyi (光明友益) pet food brand in November 2025, Three Squirrels put its Jinpai Naiba (金牌奶爸) pet range on sale in May 2025, and Want Want announced a strategic investment in the pet brand FurFurLand in August 2026, while Mengniu's subsidiary Milkground has advertised for a head of a pet cheese business. We found no published sales figures for any of these pet businesses, so their growth cannot be measured from the groups' own disclosures, but we believe the number and size of the entrants show that large packaged-food companies now treat pet food as a category worth building in.

For investors, brand strategists and pet-specialist brands, the point is that companies which built China's modern dairy and snack categories have begun to put money and brand effort into pet food, and that they are entering the sub-segments, such as premium dry food, probiotic cat food and pet cheese, where their manufacturing and nutrition expertise carries over most directly.

Who Has Moved Into Pet Food, and How#

The entries take several forms. Yili sells pet food under eBorn through its subsidiary Kangyijia and put a probiotic cat food on sale in August 2025 (36Kr; Xinhua), Bright Dairy launched Guangming Youyi with four premium dry foods at the China International Import Expo in November 2025 (Lanjinger), and Three Squirrels launched Jinpai Naiba in May 2025 and set up a pet food company, 饿了个喵, the following month (36Kr). Milkground, a Mengniu subsidiary, has advertised for a head of pet cheese and a senior pet product manager (Xinhua), Want Want announced in August 2026 a strategic investment in Shanghai Pilinxing, the parent company of the pet brand FurFurLand (RCCaijing), and Xinhua lists New Hope among the domestic dairy companies that have entered pet food through their own brands, ingredient supply or acquisitions. The longest-standing entrant is Tongwei Group, whose pet food brand Care Haozhuren (好主人) has been based in Chengdu for 26 years (Science and Technology Daily).

The reasons are visible at the level of the market. China's annual births have fallen over most of the past decade, the infant-formula category serves a smaller cohort of babies than it did, and dairy and packaged snacks are mature categories, so a pet category that the report sizes at USD 11.9 billion, growing 17.5% YoY, is an attractive adjacency for a company with manufacturing scale, national distribution and experience of building food brands.

Because none of these groups has published sales for its pet business, the size of each move cannot yet be judged from outside, and the trend is best read as a set of early strategic bets on a growing market by companies with the means to compete in it.

Tongwei: Pet Food From an Animal-Feed Base#

Tongwei (通威) came to pet food through animal feed, which its listed arm, Tongwei Co., runs alongside its solar manufacturing business. Care Haozhuren makes its pet food in its own 20,000-square-metre factory and is described as the specialist pet food brand of Tongwei Group (Science and Technology Daily).

For analysts, Tongwei shows what a move into pet food looks like when it grows out of an existing feed business, with formulation expertise and upstream supply shared between the two, whereas the dairy and snack groups that have entered more recently bring human-nutrition research and consumer brand-building, and are building the pet-specific formulation and the specialist sales channels, such as pet shops and veterinary clinics, that the category depends on.

Methodology Note#

We found no published sales figures for the pet businesses of the groups named here, so this article describes what each group has launched, bought or announced, as reported in the sources linked in the text, and does not estimate the growth of those businesses or compare them with the groups' other categories. The pet market size and growth figures are Moojing Market Intelligence measurements from the China Pet Economy 2024 Q1 to 2026 Q1 analysis.

Investor and Competitive Implications#

For investors, the implication is that pet businesses inside large food groups may become a more visible part of those groups' equity stories as they grow, particularly if the groups begin to report them as separate lines in their results.

For pet-pure-play competitors, the implication is structural. The next 24 months will see well-capitalised, distribution-rich FMCG parents enter pet sub-segments that pet-native brands have built first. These parents bring three structural advantages: cold-chain and ambient-food manufacturing scale, established mainstream e-commerce platform relationships, and FMCG-grade brand investment budgets. Pet-pure-play brands that have built the first wave of premium domestic pet food, pet snacks, and pet supplements should expect pricing pressure, channel competition, and accelerated category-marketing spend across the sub-segments where FMCG parents now hold strategic priority.

Key Takeaways#

• Several large Chinese dairy, snack and agribusiness groups have launched or invested in pet food brands, among them Yili, Bright Dairy, Three Squirrels and Want Want, and Mengniu's subsidiary Milkground is recruiting for a pet cheese business.
• Most of the entries are recent, dating from 2025 and 2026, while Tongwei Group has owned the Care Haozhuren pet food brand for 26 years.
• We found no published sales figures for these pet businesses, so their growth cannot be judged from the groups' own disclosures.
• Investor implication: pet businesses inside food groups may become a more visible part of those groups' equity stories as they grow.
• Competitive implication: pet-specialist brands should prepare for well-funded entrants from packaged food in the sub-segments they built first.

About the Data#

Company facts in this article are taken from the news reports linked in the text, which were checked in October 2026, and we found no published sales figures for the groups' pet businesses. Macro context for category-level conditions draws on Mintel, Goldman Sachs, and National Bureau of Statistics China demographic and category-share research cited elsewhere in the source report. Pet-category sizing of USD 11.9 billion at +17.5% YoY is the headline figure from the broader China Pet Economy 2024 Q1 to 2026 Q1 analysis.