Buckle up for the fifth and final episode of our Trends to Watch in 2025 mini-series! This fascinating episode is all about personalized pet nutrition, from breed-specific formulations and custom kibbles to high-tech wearables that can track all kinds of health and wellness metrics in real-time. Join us as we explore how the future of pet nutrition is set to become increasingly tailored to each individual pet’s needs.

Helpful Links

Tailored Tastes: How Custom Pet Food is Shaping Tomorrow: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/tailored-tastes-how-custom-pet-food-shaping-tomorrow-bsm-partners-zm25f/

Brushing Up: Pet Dental Health as a Market Opportunity: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/brushing-up-pet-dental-health-market-opportunity-bsm-partners-gml1c/

Wearable Tech—A New Era for Pet Care: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/wearable-tech-pets-new-era-pet-care-bsm-partners-d9trc/

Getting on the Scale for National Pet Wellness Month: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/getting-scale-national-pet-wellness-month-bsm-partners-2rwtc/ 

Show Notes

00:00 – Welcome Back!

01:57 – Microbiome Testing

02:54 – The Many Shapes and Sizes of Personalized Diets

05:08 – Breed-Specific Formulations

06:05 – The Rise of Preventive Care

07:36 – Tracking Health Trends with Wearable Tech

08:36 – Addressing the Pet Obesity Epidemic

11:18 – Final Thoughts from BSM Partners’ Experts

15:30 – Conclusion and Farewell

Welcome back and I'm glad you're here because we've made

it to the final installment of our top trends to watch in 2025 miniseries.

If you've been following along this week, we've explored everything from sustainable

sourcing to alternative proteins from biotics to packaging innovations.

But today we're zeroing in on perhaps the most transformative trend of all.

Personalized Pet Nutrition.

From custom blended kibble with your pup's name on the bag to high tech wearables

that track everything from scratching to midnight snacking, the future of

pet nutrition is becoming increasingly tailored to each individual pet's

nutritional, health, and wellness needs.

But here's the million dollar question.

How personalized can we really get without encroaching on sustainability?

Or the fact that our animals are, well, animals, and not, in fact, small humans.

In today's episode, we'll explore breed specific formulations, debate

the scalability of truly customized diets, and take a look at some exciting

innovations in preventive pet care.

You'll hear from an expert panel of VSM partners,

veterinarians, and food scientists.

And some of what they have to say might surprise you.

So, without further ado, let's explore the expanding world of

personalized nutrition for pets.

Welcome to Barking Mad, a podcast by DSM Partners.

I'm your host, Jordan Tyler.

The topic of personalized pet nutrition is broad and encompasses

everything from tailor made diets that feature your pet's name on the

package to breed specific formulations designed to cater to the needs of

specific canine and feline varieties.

According to Dr.

Blair Aldridge, a PhD nutritionist and vice president of nutrition services

at BSM Partners, some companies are even going so far as to measure an

individual pet's gut microbiome to determine what they would benefit from

nutritionally on a microscopic level.

You know, I think there are lots of ways to

have personalized pet nutrition.

I know some companies have been doing, you know, microbiome testing and other species

they've done that and then adjusting the formula based on those results

to see if you can make some changes.

And so that's even one more step further.

That's very exciting for everybody with a cat or dog or horse.

Today, most personalized pet diets are sold online, direct to

consumer or on a subscription basis.

And many of the brands that offer these kinds of diets ask pet owners

to take a quiz to answer questions about their pet's age, breed,

lifestyle, dietary preferences, and restrictions, health concerns, etc.

in order to craft a custom formula that meets that pet's individual needs.

But when it comes to truly tailor made diets There are some points to consider

critically here, like, realistically, how scalable or sustainable is this approach?

Are brands playing in this space, asking the right questions to prompt

personalized formulation properly?

We discuss all the time how there are countless factors that play

into the health and well being of our pets, and we know diet is an

influential factor, to be sure.

So getting it right is a really, really important piece of the

total wellness puzzle for our pets.

And while we may not have all the answers today, there are some

very exciting ramifications of a more personalized pet food market.

For example, Dr.

Renee Streeter, Board Certified Veterinary Nutritionist, spoke about the ability to formulate

the ability to formulate diets that

protect pets against

certain predispositions.

You know, again, every dog is an individual and even within a breed

they're going to be individual variation, but it's one step

closer to Having an individualized diet for that dog or that breed.

So I do think it is possible to to take the typical concerns for

that breed and put them into a dog food, especially if there's genetic

predispositions, or maybe it's as simple as they're prone to obesity.

Um, maybe they're prone to dental disease.

And these are things that we can incorporate into the

food for that specific breed.

There are some companies who focus as well on the way different

breeds eat, whether it's.

You know, a long snouted breed or a flat faced breed, because they're going to

pick up and chew the kibble differently.

And so making that easier for them is pretty cool too.

So there are things that you can do.

I think it's

valid.

There have been breed specific diets around for, for quite some time.

And just having that picture of your dog, you know, makes you identify and,

Oh, this one is perfect for my dog.

I'm going to buy it.

That may or may not be the perfect diet for your dog.

I mean, you might have a pointer who sits on the couch all day versus a pointer who

actually goes out and works for a living.

So those are two very different diets that I would feed those dogs, even

though we could generalize for the generic pointer, but really they

do deserve two different diets.

Other than that, I'd say from a breed specific standpoint, Companies are

often adding, like, add on supplements, and so, oh, well, my breed is prone to

this joint disease, so therefore I'm going to add on this joint supplement.

So there's that aspect where the owner also gets some control in helping their

dog, and it's a very emotional mindset and makes an owner feel like they're doing

all that they can for their beloved pet.

Now, Dr.

Aldrich alludes to an interesting point here in that adjusting nutrients to

get a therapeutic benefit Really is an extension of another shift we're seeing

in the market toward preventive pet care.

Now, historically, pet owners will perceive a problem and then

address it on a prescriptive basis.

So, you see the problem, you treat the problem, the problem goes away.

Whereas today, more and more pet owners are purchasing custom diets and special

supplements that target their pet's unique health concerns, eat and when.

Symptoms aren't yet apparent.

Dr.

Bradley Quest, veterinarian and principal of veterinary services

at BSM Partners, had a prime example to share along these lines.

You used the example of a dental diet.

I mean, that's what you're doing there.

You're trying to Help the preventive care, because unfortunately we

know most pet parents don't, including myself, I'll admit I'm

not good at brushing my dog's teeth.

I'm not saying I'm not good at it, I'm not, I'm not committed to it, if you will.

There you go, I said it out loud.

But, if we use a dental diet that's been tested and proven, then that's going to

help my dog's, you know, oral health.

It is, because it's been tested.

Testing is definitely the key word here.

We often say, if a company isn't conducting pre market testing on

their products, they're using your dogs and cats, and your guinea pigs

for that matter, as guinea pigs.

Which, I'm sure we can all agree is a little shady.

Anyway, let's continue along the vein of preventive care because there's

one exciting innovation meeting this demand for pets that I'd like to discuss

today, and that is wearable technology.

This is a huge trend and has been for a while in the human space.

Like, think back to the rapid rise of Fitbit.

Like, they have not gone away, and a number of products like it

have entered the market since.

Now, today, we're seeing technology companies start to develop wearable tech

just for pets that can monitor a whole range of health and wellness parameters,

all in the service of preventive care.

It's really great for understanding effectiveness of a

preventative diet or a therapeutic diet that might be used for a diet trial to

test for allergies, for instance, right?

Because they can track itching behaviors.

So we can really get objective measurements about how well, One of

those diets worked, and it's a great way to couple nutrition with medicine.

Now, speaking of coupling nutrition with veterinary care, one

of the most prevalent health issues facing dogs and cats today is obesity.

According to the Association of Pet Obesity Prevention's 2023 Pet Weight

Management and Nutritional Survey, 61 percent of cats and 59 percent of dogs in

the United States States were estimated to be overweight or obese in 2022.

Now, despite these staggering statistics, only 28 percent of cat owners and 17

percent of dog owners actually acknowledge their pets less than ideal body condition.

This highlights a concerning gap between reality.

And there remains a huge opportunity to help pet parents learn how

to properly identify this health concern and then address it.

Now, according to Dr.

Streeter, integrating wearable technology is yet another fabulous opportunity for

mitigating the pet obesity epidemic.

You know

how much I love making fat dogs skinny, but that's

another really great thing to utilize.

I really do.

It's so satisfying because you can track their activity level and the owners

can really begin to see, Oh my gosh, they lost, you know, whatever 1 percent

of their body weight, but they moved.

I'm making something up right now, but 10 percent more.

You can't really appreciate when your dog just loses that teeny tiny

amount of weight, but to see how it affects their mobility, that is

motivating for sure to stay on track.

It's very exciting.

Especially in cats, you know, we've really focused

on dogs in all of our examples.

So the cats lurking at night, you know, and monitoring their activity.

One could be funny, but also we often don't think about cats

having joint issues, but they do.

And so you can start to track that a little bit better.

You know, Dr.

Aldridge is right.

We talk a lot about dogs, but you know, weight loss and the wearable

technology for cats is just as important, you know, litter box

usage and frequency and all of that.

It all ties in.

I think that's probably going to get more and more popular as time goes on.

And technology gets better, just like everything else.

It gets better and it gets cheaper.

When it gets better, it gets cheaper, which is actually really

good because most of the time those things don't always go hand in hand.

So there you have it.

From tailored diets that cater to individual needs to preventive strategies

being unlocked through wearable tech, it's clear that pet care is evolving in

ways that put science, innovation, and compassion at Really at the forefront.

Now, if I had to pick one key takeaway from our Trends to Watch

in 2025 series, I'd say these trends are all interconnected.

A global need for concerted sustainability efforts is driving

a trend toward alternative proteins and more sustainable raw materials.

While at the same time, the quest for preventive care is leading pet parents

to seek personalized nutritional options that deliver functional

benefits to not only extend the dog or cat's lifespan, but their health span.

And then this really all comes full circle when we start to think about

sustainability, not only in terms of extending the viability of the

planet, but But also extending the wellbeing of ourselves and our pets.

Now, before we wrap up today, I wanted to share a couple final sound bites

from a few BSN partners, experts who have big ambitions for the future of pet

care and some advice for how we can get there together for Emily Mesnier, vice

president of European operations at BSN partners, solving the sustainability

puzzle in the United States will be crucial for the industry's future.

The key to unlocking the sustainability paradox in the U.

S.

lies, I think, in finding ways to make sustainability aspirational

and desirable and affordable.

And that's very complex.

But just like, you know, the electric car was not exactly considered a sexy

car, you know, not that long ago.

And of course that paradigm has shifted.

Very fast in the last 10 years.

We need to find that key for pet food sustainability and

sustainability in general.

For Dr.

Renée Streeter, personalized nutrition is no longer a matter

of what and why, but how and when.

I think any sort of more individualized

nutrition is going to happen.

This could range between the microbiome, like Dr.

Aldrich was talking about, where we can assess the microbes of the gut

and their populations and try to determine if a shift would be beneficial

and feed the bacteria that we want.

The other thing is genomics, right, and trying to determine how to feed

a pet based on its genome and what it may be at risk for in the future.

Currently, we don't know if feeding something in a preventative manner

will help prevent the disease or not.

We think it will, but having more research in that area, I'll give an example.

Like, If we give a dog that's prone to heart disease extra taurine and

carnitine when it's a puppy, is it less likely to develop the disease?

Those are really long term studies that nobody's done, but I think It

will happen, and I think that that will really, really be a big thing, those pets.

And for Dr.

Bradley Quest, none of this would be possible without collaborative

efforts across the industry to, again, do the research.

You know, we touched on the long term research and obviously long term

means it takes a lot of time to do that.

You know, we're not talking weeks or months.

We're talking, you know, in a lot of cases, years to try to get answers

for things, whether it's efficacy, safety, nutritional value, whatever

that is, but probably more than that, I know we've touched on this in other.

Episodes we've done, but you know, the industry needs to commit to supporting

this research and then sharing it with the rest of the industry.

And so I hope that that's a trend that we see.

Again, it's not a product, it's not an ingredient, but I hope it's a trend

that we see improves not just this year, but in the foreseeable future.

It's kind of like the saying, a rising tide lifts all ships.

The more research we do as an industry and the more collaborative

and science driven that research is.

We'll elevate our overall understanding of pet nutrition and care in a way

that benefits everyone, most of all pet parents and their furry family members.

As we look at 2025 and beyond, one thing is clear.

The pet industry is at an exciting crossroads.

The convergence of science, technology, and compassion offers incredible

opportunities to improve the lives of our pets and the planet we share with them.

But Progress doesn't happen in a vacuum.

It's up to all of us as pet parents, industry professionals,

and advocates to ask the tough questions, support research, and push

for transparency and accountability.

The teams behind BSM Partners and Barking Mad are your go to source

for thought leadership in pet care.

We're here to help you navigate trends and fads so you can make

informed decisions about the pet nutrition and care products you buy.

To our listeners, thank you for joining us on this journey.

Whether you're exploring new diets for your furry family member, curious

about sustainability, or just want to stay ahead of the curve, we're We

hope today's insights help you make informed decisions for your pets.

If you'd like to learn more about BSM Partners, please visit our website at www.

bsmpartners.

net.

Don't forget to subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

And if you enjoyed today's episode, share it with a fellow

pet lover and leave us a review.

Lastly, be sure to stay tuned for future episodes about pet care innovation,

sustainability, and other hard hitting topics you won't want to miss.

We'd like to thank our dedicated team in support of this episode, Adamia Thomas,

Neely Bowden, Kate Wright, and Dr.

Katie Miller.

A special thanks to Leanne Haggerty and Michael Johnson.

Happy New Year, and see you next time!