China Pet Food Market 2025: Size, Growth Drivers & Brands

Executive Summary#

China's online dog and cat food market reached CN¥ 41.38 billion in MAT 2025 (the twelve months to November 2025), growing 9.0% year-on-year (YoY), as consumer demand moves from general feeding towards precise health management. Between 2017 and 2025 the industry went through three phases, from volume-driven expansion through a boom in new formats to a mature stage in which quality, regulatory compliance and brand differentiation decide outcomes. Sales are spreading across a wider set of brands as agile domestic brands gain ground, functional innovation has become a larger source of growth than ingredient quality, and tighter standards are speeding up the exit of non-compliant producers.

A CN¥ 41 Billion Market Built in Three Phases#

The online pet food market has grown more than sixfold since 2017 and reached CN¥ 41.38 billion across three leading Chinese marketplaces, and this growth came in three distinct phases that each changed how brands compete.

In the first phase, from 2017 to 2019, the market centred on cost-performance and basic feeding needs, and extruded food was the mainstream product, sold in large, affordable packages with low barriers to entry. In the boom period from 2019 to 2022 sales doubled, cat food overtook dog food as the largest category, and new formats such as freeze-dried mixed food appeared quickly. Ingredient safety became a growing concern for consumers as competition intensified.

Since 2022, stricter regulation has phased out non-compliant small workshops, and brands have moved towards quality, clean ingredients, functional formulas and advanced preservation technologies.

Sales Spread Across More Brands#

Sales in the online pet food market are spreading across a wider set of brands, as agile domestic brands win customers through product innovation and a close match with what pet owners need. We believe this shows that competition has moved beyond scale into a phase in which ingredient innovation and functional specificity determine how fast a brand grows.

Smaller brands are building products that combine quality feeding and patented ingredients with a specific function, as in Furrytail's Rainbow Puree Cat Staple Can, Shouhushen's Pet Fish Oil Tablets and Universal Nutritional Paste, and Fregate's Fresh Meat Baked Staple Cat Food. We believe this product logic of "segmented functions plus high-quality raw materials" has become the main route for small and medium-sized brands to compete with established ones.

We read this as a structural change in the market that should outlast the current cycle, because stricter regulatory standards have raised barriers that remove the least capable producers while consumer preferences have moved towards newer products.

Cat Food Leads While Supplements Surge#

Cat staple food is the main source of growth in the online pet food market, with sales of CN¥ 20.81 billion in MAT 2025, up 9.5% YoY, which is faster than the market as a whole. It outsold dog staple food by approximately 2.4:1 across the months measured. Dog staple food contributed CN¥ 8.70 billion and grew 4.6%, a steady but slower rate that reflects the more mature state of the dog food category.

Pet supplements were the fastest-growing segment, with sales of CN¥ 3.69 billion, up 20.3% YoY, and this suggests that Chinese pet owners are moving from treating health problems towards preventing them. Products sold on functional claims grew well above the market average, among them coat health (+63.2%), immune enhancement (+41.3%) and oral health (+43.3%). Cardiovascular health supplements grew fastest of all sub-categories, at 107.9% YoY.

The combined staple food market grew to CN¥ 29.51 billion, with premiumisation shaping how the category develops. High-end formats, namely prescription food, freeze-dried staple food and fresh-chilled food, are growing significantly faster than the market average, which suggests that consumers trading up to pricier formats remain the main structural force in staple food.

From Scale Competition to Value Competition#

The market's growth has come more from added value than from volume. Ingredients and craftsmanship account for nearly 30% of total sales and form the quality foundation that consumers now expect as a baseline. Product functionality drove growth of 14%, which makes it the main source of growth as consumers look for specific health benefits from everyday feeding. Experience, which covers form, emotional engagement and consumption scenarios, drove growth of 18.7% from a smaller base, which suggests that premium positioning depends more and more on emotional and experiential value.

Regulation Raises the Bar#

Regulatory tightening has become the strongest force reshaping the structure of the market. At the end of 2025 the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued two industry standards for pet food, one for prescription food and one for freeze-dried food, and both took effect nationwide on 1 May 2026. These standards are speeding up the exit of non-compliant small workshops and concentrating the market around brands that invest in ingredient transparency, functional innovation and technological differentiation.

Local governments are reinforcing this trend with their own industrial policies, and in October 2025 Zhejiang province issued a pet industry plan that supports smart pet devices and customised functional products for different breeds and health conditions. Brands have responded by investing in precision feeding, and in April 2025 Fregate opened a fresh-meat precision nutrition research centre with China Agricultural University.

About the Data#

This analysis draws on Moojing Market Intelligence (魔镜洞察) proprietary e-commerce data covering three leading Chinese marketplaces for the trailing twelve-month period from December 2024 to November 2025 (MAT 2025). Market sizing and category growth figures are based on estimated Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) derived from marketplace transaction data.

Download the Full Report#

For the complete analysis, including brand analysis, category breakdowns and consumer trend data, download the full report.

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Sources: Moojing Market Intelligence, MAT 2025 Pet Supplement Category Analysis. Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, agricultural industry standards for prescription and freeze-dried pet food, effective 1 May 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

It reached CN¥ 41.38 billion in MAT 2025, the twelve months to November 2025, growing 9.0% year on year, having expanded more than sixfold since 2017. The market passed through a cost-performance period to 2019 and a format boom to 2022, in which sales doubled and cat food overtook dog food, and since 2022 it has been in a mature phase where quality, regulatory compliance and brand differentiation decide outcomes more than price and distribution do.

Because the basis of competition has moved from scale to functional specificity. Tighter regulation removed the least capable producers, and at the same time consumer preferences moved towards products that combine quality ingredients with specific functional claims, which agile domestic brands have been quick to build, so in MAT 2025 sales spread further across mid-sized and smaller brands.

Products defined by a specific function paired with a named quality ingredient, as opposed to general nutrition. Examples include Furrytail's puree cat staple can, Shouhushen's fish oil tablets and nutritional paste, and Fregate's fresh-meat baked cat food. What they share is a product logic of segmented function plus high-quality raw material, which has become the practical route for a smaller brand to compete without matching an established brand's distribution.

Cat staple food reached CN¥ 20.81 billion in MAT 2025, up 9.5% YoY and faster than the wider market, while dog staple food reached CN¥ 8.70 billion, up 4.6%, so cat food outsold dog food by roughly 2.4:1. We believe the gap reflects category maturity, because dog food is the older and more settled of the two categories while cat food is still taking up new formats.