With a population of 1.412 billion, China has around 51 million dogs and 65 million cats. The pet nutrition market there is estimated to be worth $42.6 billion in 2020, ranking second worldwide, just behind the USA. Projected annual market growth is close to 20%. Chinese veterinarians and pet owners are aware of the crucial impact of nutrition on pet health, and the importance of a diet adapted to their specific needs. Our Veterinary HPM^® foods, available in China since October 12, respond precisely to this growing demand in the country: access to a quality diet for dogs and cats that is complete, balanced and respects the nature of domestic carnivores.

The culmination of a formidable team effort 

The launch of Veterinary HPM^® in China last October was the fruit of over five years of meticulous, coordinated work by our local and head office teams. As the Chinese market is highly regulated, our main challenge was to develop our industrial network locally in order to produce our food locally, while maintaining our unique quality standards and formula. This challenge was successfully met, thanks to the close collaboration and sharing of expertise between our teams and our local manufacturer. Chinese vets and owners now have access to our cat and dog food, with the guarantee that the formula and our quality requirements are strictly the same as in all our other marketing countries. 

The only cat and dog food distributed exclusively in veterinary clinics

China has a network of 27,000 veterinary clinics. However, the animal nutrition market is mainly played out on the Internet, with low-price products that are often of average quality. It therefore seemed important to us to offer Chinese owners and veterinarians a new nutritional solution for dogs and cats, scientifically designed to meet the needs of these domestic carnivores. Because we are convinced that an animal's good health begins with the quality of its diet, and that the veterinarian is at the heart of this medical and scientific approach to nutrition, we have opted, against the current, for distribution exclusively in clinics.

Step by step

Initially, we chose to offer our Veterinary HPM^® physiological foods in around twenty clinics in each of China's biggest cities (Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Wuhan), enabling veterinarians to work on their preventive role, in support of healthy dogs and cats. In each of these clinics, we reinforce the veterinary teams' knowledge of domestic carnivore nutrition and the importance of providing a protein-rich diet and low carbohydrates. We have also developed owner awareness tools to present our approach, and offer samples to enable vets and owners to make up their own minds about our foods.

This is the starting point of our itinerary in China, before a gradual roll-out of our entire range throughout the country. Our aim is to work hand-in-hand with Chinese veterinarians and owners to develop our medical and scientific approach to animal nutrition over the long term, so that we can contribute alongside them to the day-to-day care and health of cats and dogs.