Owners have never been more interested than now in the impact of nutrition on their pets’ health – and a rapidly changing retail market is cashing in on this fact.
The holistic approach to health care is stronger than ever, and it can be a challenging time for practices that still follow the traditional model for pet food sales.
If your approach to food sales and nutrition advice hasn’t had a review in a few years, now might be time for a rethink. If your team’s enthusiasm for pet nutrition is a little lacklustre, it could be time for a refresh. Having a knowledgeable, empowered team that can give informed, reliable and pertinent nutritional advice to your clients is not only good for revenue generation – it bonds clientele and boosts your practice reputation among local pet owners.
Owners talk
No pet topic provokes more debate and discussion right now than pet nutrition. Myths and misconceptions abound – and, sadly, a small, but significant, anti-vet sentiment is brewing.
Some detractors of commercial pet food claim vets are aligned with corporate pet food company bad guys to make pets ill and, therefore, boost their profits on providing reactive health care. I kid you not. I was astonished to see a well-known UK pet food business boldly publishing this as fact quite recently. Its other claim was veterinary surgeons are taught very little about nutrition or canine digestion. Is this what we want the public to think about our profession?
Much of the hype and paranoia comes via online reports of negative pet food industry stories in the US, which is governed by entirely different legislation and controls to the UK and EU. At the time of writing, Brexit uncertainty is still lingering, so it’s unclear what’s going to change on that front. But the point remains – UK pet food companies are regulated by some of the safest and strictest quality and safety controls in the world.
Committed to pet health
Despite some claims commercial pet food is bad for health, the pet food industry is deeply committed to enhancing pet health, well-being and longevity. And pets are living longer, happier, healthier lives – in part, due to advances in veterinary medicine, as well as the quality of affordable nutrition they’re being provided compared to 50 years ago.
Perhaps the low genetic diversity and impact of generations of line breeding for appearance over health is a more likely suspect in the rising incidence of cancer and other hereditary disease in our pedigree pets than processed or cooked pet food.
What better time than this post-truth era to counter the conspiracy theorists? We can grow trust in our profession by offering sensible, balanced and evidence-based advice to pet owners who, after all, just want to do the best for their precious pet.
It’s a difficult choice knowing which of the many food options out there are best for an individual client and his or her dog or cat. Too much choice can be confusing. Being there to offer some helpful advice in that time of confusion is a pretty powerful tool at our disposal. Raw or cooked, grain-free or novel protein, home-cooked or hydrolysed? These are the questions on pet owners’ lips that we should be confident in answering if we are to remain relevant and trusted by our clients.
Fifth vital assessment
The importance of nutrition in maintaining good health can’t be underestimated. As Hippocrates famously put it: “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.” Indeed, the WSAVA announced in 2011 that the fifth vital assessment of the veterinary clinical exam – after temperature, pulse, respiration and pain – should be nutrition. The fifth vital assessment means making a nutritional assessment and specific recommendation for every pet, every time.
The WSAVA also acknowledges that, with every patient exam, you have the opportunity to strengthen your relationship with your clients.
Now, let’s look at some of the advances in nutritional science. What we now know about the nutritional requirements of companion animals has come on in leaps and bounds since the last century. And that’s largely due to commercial pet food companies investing in scientific, evidence-based research and development.
The range of diseases supported by, and treated with, nutrition has grown remarkably. We have a multitude of high-quality and highly effective prescription diets available to us. We know more than we’ve ever known about maximising health and treating disease through nutrition, with more exciting discoveries on beneficial ingredients or dietary therapies being reported each year.
Bespoke nutrition
Breed and life stage-specific diets mean we can provide bespoke nutrition to all individuals to promote healthy, appropriate growth rates and provide a nutrient-optimised diet over their lifetime.
This is crucially important when it comes to canine nutrition in that the sheer diversity of dog breeds adds more complexity and, therefore, more chance that a nutritional insult can occur during an important development period. Or that a genetically predisposed condition within that breed is exacerbated by diet.
It may be an obvious example to illustrate this point, but the difference between a Chihuahua and a great Dane is massive, in terms of time to maturity as well as disease predispositions and eventual stature.
Feeding a diet that is deficient or imbalanced in terms of calcium and phosphorus for even a short period can have catastrophic consequences for skeletal health. We are seeing the rise of rickets again in some raw-fed or home-cooked diet dogs. Allowing overconsumption of calories and excess weight during the early growth period can predispose giant breeds to various skeletal developmental problems, too. Tailoring the diet to age and breed-specific conditions is no bad thing, yet I’ve heard many sceptical veterinary professionals write these diets off as a marketing gimmick.
New developments
Research on ingredients, supplements and ways of feeding is turning up exciting developments. The inclusion of dietary beta-glucans and nucleotides – for example, in the post-weaning period – has been clinically proven to boost immune defences in the gut mucosa, as well as enhance antibody production post-vaccination.
Supplementing the omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid in puppies post-weaning has been proven to enhance mental and vision development, also enhancing socialisation and learning outcomes. New nutritional studies are coming out all the time, and responsible, progressive pet food brands are pushing ever forward in the production of diets that can truly enhance pet health and well-being.
If you are stocking or recommending certain pet food products, it helps to be familiar with some of the functional ingredients they contain and claims they make. That way, you can impress on your client the pet-centric benefits of the food you’re recommending.
In an age where practices are being undercut by bulk discount buying groups and online retail, the added value of in-practice nutritional advice is a strong driver of client-purchasing loyalty.
Conclusions
Clients are taking more interest in their own nutrition and that of their pets. Your choice within your practice is to see this as a positive opportunity or an annoyance.
In my opinion, it’s most certainly the former. Opportunities exists to support, educate, build trust and authority, bond your clients and build powerful advocates of your practice within the community. Building a valuable revenue stream for your practice is another opportunity.
Clinics of all types have traditionally enjoyed, to some extent or another, an income stream on sales of pet food from their reception area. However, bulky bags and cumbersome cans can be difficult to manage when you’re dealing with an eager-to-leave pet. The additional cost of the food, on top of the veterinary bill, can also be a difficult pill to swallow.
Most pet foods, including prescription or previously “veterinary exclusive” diets are now available online, and are often cheaper than practices need to charge for them to turn any profit.
Clients can be put off when they realise they can pay less online for the same product. This is known to erode trust in the profession, just as it does with cheaper online pharmaceuticals.
However, the retail landscape is changing, and this can impact the veterinary practice and its income streams. Traditional retailing – bricks-and-mortar shops – are in decline. With the rise of e-commerce, customers are finding it is quicker, cheaper and more convenient to buy online. Meanwhile, many practices are choosing to ditch wellness diets altogether in favour of freeing up space, staff time and the potential negative consequence of being seen as too expensive.
Therapeutic or prescription diets, however, still offer vet practices a real opportunity as a revenue stream. If you opt to offer wellness diets, nutritional advice, nurse consultations and weight clinics are highly recommended to add the value needed to encourage repeat business.
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