Geriatric Furry Companions Spur Major Shift in China's Pet-Care Industry

When Cathy Zhao, a 31-year-old corporate employee in Shanghai, noticed her 8-year-old Maine Coon cat Doudou struggling to jump and showing signs of sluggishness, she decided it's time for a dietary overhaul. She swapped his standard Orijen kibble, a Canadian brand, for a specialized older-feline formula and began mixing in joint-care supplements.

"He is an indispensable companion in my life," Cathy said, noting that her cat has been the one constant through job changes, relationships and breakups. "He has witnessed it all."

Cathy is far from alone. In China's mega-cities, a generation of young, single, and childless urbanites treat pets as family members, and as pets grow older, the industry supplying care and nutrition is shifting.

There were an estimated 126 million cats and dogs in urban China last year, with a market catering to them valued at 312.6 billion yuan (US$46.2 billion) and expected to rise to 405 billion yuan by 2028, Economic Daily reported earlier this year.

According to a survey by the Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Commission, local pet owners spend an average of up to 1,000 yuan a month on their animals, driving a citywide market worth up to 25 billion yuan. Notably, consumers born in the 1990s and 2000s account for over 80 percent of this market. They are highly sensitive to ingredients, demand professional-grade services and gladly pay a premium for their animals' physical and emotional well-being.

As this generation of urban pets ages, their medical and dietary needs are turning into non-negotiable expenses, creating a multi-billion yuan elder-pet care market. The average age spa of pets varies from eight to 11 years.

Data from 2019 shows that the ages of China's pet dogs were heavily concentrated between two and five, while cats were mostly between two and six. Demographic tracking indicates that a massive number of dogs entered their old-age phase between 2022 and 2026, while a parallel wave of senior cats is peaking between 2023 and 2029.

This graying demographic among the four-pawed set is rapidly transforming the traditional pet supplies industry. A report by China International Capital notes that the top five brands in the older-pet market in the US command a 66 percent market share, with the market leader holding 28 percent. By contrast, the five top brands in China hold a mere 25 percent market share, leaving the market highly fragmented.

For decades, multinational titans like Mars' Royal Canin and Nestlé's Purina brands built up an entrenched market advantage by embedding themselves across more than 15,000 Chinese veterinary clinics. Having established local manufacturing facilities in China as early as the 2000s, their clinical prescription diets remain the default recommendation among practicing veterinarians.

However, rising Chinese challengers like Myfoodie and Wanpy are fighting back using agile supply chains and direct online sales.

In 2025, Gambol Pet Group, the parent company of Myfoodie, reported 6.7 billion yuan in revenue, over 40 percent of which came from sales on e-commerce platforms like Alibaba, Douyin, Pinduoduo, and JD.com. This direct-to-consumer model bypasses traditional distributors to secure higher profit margins and harvest immediate consumer data. By comparison, specialized physical pet stores held 42 percent share of the global pet treat market in 2024.

Yet, winning online requires heavy capital deployment. Gambol's marketing expenses in 2025 hit 1.5 billion yuan, or 23 percent of revenue, outspending main local rival Yantai China Pet Foods, parent of Wanpy, which spent around 13 percent of revenue. At the same time, both companies spend less than 2 percent of revenue on research and development, with China Pet Foods investing roughly 100 million yuan and Gambol spending 92.35 million yuan in 2025.

Despite lower research budgets relative to marketing costs, domestic players are being forced to upgrade products because Chinese pet owners are becoming more finicky about what they feed pets.

The 2026, a report published by Petdata, showed pet owner preference for fresh pet food rose 5 percent from a year earlier. Some 60 percent of owners prioritize ingredient freshness, sourcing transparency and scientific formulas over price. Concurrently, nearly 58.3 percent of owners explicitly choose foods with specific health-boosting ingredients, while affordability dropped down the priority list.

To break the historical trust monopoly of Western brands, domestic giants are building automated manufacturing and research centers to secure international safety certifications. Gambol established its WarmData center, featuring full-lifecycle research labs ranging from pet maternity to nursing for sick animals.

From this research, Gambol launched its premium Barf line, which markets itself as a "jungle recipe" blending muscle meat, bones and organs with natural plant extracts. The formula is graded by pet age, and the brand has a prime advertising spot at the top of Myfoodie's online T-mall stores and livestreaming channels.

As transaction volumes and prices soar, regulators are cracking down on false advertising. In 2025, China rolled out two strict national standards: one related to pet "prescription" foods and the other dealing with freeze-dried pet foods. These rules mandate strict compliance for raw materials and safety standards, aiming to weed out low-tier brands that inflate prices by using terms like "senior care" or "kidney diet" on their packaging. Under the rules, 19 distinct categories of "prescription" foods face mandatory nutritional thresholds. Kidney diets, for example, must strictly limit phosphorus content to no more than 0.56 percent.

As diets become more clinical, highly specialized players are emerging. Biotech startups like Shanghai-based Mitotech are developing stem cell therapies to treat chronic joint, heart, nervous system and urinary tract diseases in older dogs, cats and horses. While dedicated pet stem cell drugs remain rare in China, the industry is tracking global precedents, like the EUs approval of Boehringer Ingelheim's stem cell treatments for equine cartilage injuries. Mitotech secured tens of millions of yuan in a fundraising round in 2025 to advance its pipeline.

On the care-giving front, specialized services like mobile pet nursing, day-care and long-term in-patient facilities are emerging. In Changsha, a conventional pet store owner decided to shift his space to focus entirely on long-term geriatric pet care. It currently houses 23 animals and even offers palliative services and pet funerals.

This frontier faces a major hurdle: pet insurance. Existing coverage remains heavily restricted for animals past the age 10, so it's clear to pet owners that excellent nutrition for pets when they are younger is an old-age insurance policy.

This dynamic is an industry of customized, online meal subscriptions. Owners simply upload their pet's latest veterinary blood work and health reports online, allowing brands to algorithmically tailor and ship a customized monthly diet directly to their door.

As the bonds between China's urban population and their aging companions deepen, the pet industry's transition from basic sustenance to specialized, lifelong healthcare appears permanent, shifting the commercial battlefield from mass production to high-margin emotional care.