宠物零食越卖越亏 “毛孩子”拽不动福贝宠物？

This article centers on Fubei Pet Food, a long-established Chinese pet food manufacturer that has refiled for an IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange after withdrawing its A-share application. It outlines the current state of China's pet food industry and outlines key operational challenges facing Fubei, with core takeaways as follows:

1. Industry overview: Emotion-driven pet ownership is booming in China, and the country's pet food market is projected to reach RMB 108.4 billion by 2025. Pet staple food accounts for over 65% of total market share, and the industry is expected to maintain a 10.4% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next five years. The trend of precision pet parenting is driving rapid growth in demand for niche categories such as pet treats.

2. Fubei overview: Fubei is China's second-largest third-party contract manufacturer of pet food, holding an overall market share of 5.3% and an 8.5% share of the staple food OEM/ODM segment. It operates a dual-track model combining contract manufacturing and in-house brands: its contract clients include NetEase Tiancheng, and its core owned brand Bile ranks 9th among domestic staple food brands with a 0.9% market share.

3. Key challenges for Fubei: The company has reported declining revenue for three consecutive years, with its net profit expected to plummet 40% year-over-year in 2025. Its pet treat business has recorded losses for two straight years, R&D spending has been cut nearly in half over three years while marketing expenses continue rising. Fubei previously withdrew its A-share IPO application over allegations of misrepresentation, and it distributed RMB 100 million in dividends ahead of its Hong Kong IPO, an amount exceeding its full-year net profit, leaving its listing prospects uncertain.

This article summarizes the current development status of China's pet food industry and operational challenges facing leading players, offering multi-dimensional insights for pet food brands, with core takeaways as follows:

1. Consumer trends: Premium, attentive pet parenting has become mainstream, with owners willing to spend more time and money on their pets. Consumption has expanded beyond basic staple food to cover full product categories, and consumers increasingly prioritize nutritional formulas. Demand for functional, niche pet treats is growing notably, and bulk stocking during major shopping festivals has become a common purchasing habit. The overall industry continues to expand.

2. Operational warning: As a leading industry player, Fubei is facing declining revenue from its core staple food business, falling annual revenue from its flagship owned brand, and losses in its newly launched pet treat segment. The core issue is that Fubei has continuously cut R&D investment while ramping up marketing spending, and this imbalanced cost structure has eroded profits. This case highlights the need for brands to balance R&D and marketing investment, and avoid the pitfall of prioritizing traffic over product quality.

3. Industry landscape: Industry growth has not been evenly distributed, even leading listed pet food companies are seeing clear performance divergence, with many facing the dilemma of growing revenue without parallel profit growth. Brands need to prepare for intensifying competition early and build their own core competitiveness.

This article discloses the latest developments and leading players' operational challenges in China's pet food industry, offering opportunity insights and risk references for sellers in the sector, with core takeaways as follows:

1. Market opportunities: The pet food industry continues to grow steadily, projected to reach RMB 108.4 billion by 2025 with a 10.4% CAGR over the next five years. Driven by the trend of precision pet parenting, demand for functional pet treats formulated for specific breeds of cats and dogs is growing rapidly, leaving considerable room for market expansion. Expanding into overseas markets has also emerged as a new growth driver for the industry.

2. Risk warnings: Industry growth dividends have not reached all players, and clear performance divergence has emerged among leading companies, with multiple top players reporting falling profits. Blind expansion and a strategy of prioritizing marketing over R&D will continue to erode profits, and can even lead to losses in newly launched categories. Sellers should avoid this flawed operational approach.

3. Compliance reminder: Sellers pursuing capital market listings must ensure compliance of information disclosure. Fubei's previous A-share IPO was withdrawn after it received regulatory warnings for failing to properly disclose its gambling agreements. Companies also need to allocate cash flow rationally, and avoid unreasonable dividend distributions during periods of declining performance that harm long-term development.

This article uses Fubei Pet Food as a case study to analyze the current status and challenges facing Chinese pet food manufacturing plants, offering actionable insights for industry players, with core takeaways as follows:

1. Business opportunities: Amid upgrading pet consumption, market demand has expanded beyond single staple food products to full product categories, with rapid growth in demand for functional pet treats and niche products. The third-party pet food contract manufacturing sector still has large room for growth: the current industry's second-ranked player Fubei only holds 5.3% market share, indicating low industry concentration and leaving room for leading manufacturers to consolidate the market.

2. Operational insights: Many manufacturers operate a dual-track model combining contract manufacturing and owned brands, and need to reasonably balance resource allocation between the two businesses. Fubei's continuous cuts to R&D investment led to consecutive years of falling revenue for its core owned brand and losses in its newly launched pet treat business. This shows that manufacturers transitioning to owned brands must secure sufficient R&D investment and plan category expansion at a reasonable pace.

3. Capital path lessons: Manufacturers preparing for IPO must strictly ensure information disclosure compliance. Fubei was issued a regulatory warning for making false statements about its signed gambling agreements during its A-share IPO process, which ultimately led to the application being withdrawn. All manufacturers pursuing capitalization should be alert to this risk.

This article summarizes development trends and operational pain points of leading companies in China's pet food industry, offering guidance on business direction for service providers serving the sector, with core takeaways as follows:

1. Industry development trends: The pet food industry maintains overall growth, and industry players have strong enthusiasm for capitalization, with a large number of companies pursuing IPOs. Meanwhile, more companies are building their own owned brands and expanding into overseas markets to find new growth, which has generated rising demand for brand marketing, traffic operation, overseas channel development, capitalization consulting and other related services.

2. Core client pain points: Most pet food companies currently face pressure from falling profits. Three core pain points stand out: first, customer acquisition costs keep rising, with increasing marketing spending failing to drive proportional growth; second, insufficient R&D investment leaves product competitiveness unable to keep up with consumer demand amid consumption upgrading; third, many companies fail to meet information disclosure compliance requirements during the IPO process.

3. Recommended business layout: Service providers can develop targeted solutions for these pain points: offer refined traffic operation services to help companies cut customer acquisition costs, connect companies with R&D resources to help them improve product competitiveness, and provide compliance consulting for capitalization to help companies smoothly推进 their listing processes.

This article discloses the latest operating status of China's pet food industry, offering high reference value for platform operators active in the pet food sector, with core takeaways as follows:

1. Enterprise demand: Leading pet food companies currently have multi-dimensional demands: during the online sales phase, they need marketing and promotion support from traffic platforms to help brands reach consumers; second, demand for capitalization is strong, with many companies whose A-share IPO failed turning to the Hong Kong market, requiring access to listing service support; third, companies expanding overseas need platforms to provide support related to overseas channel development.

2. Investment and recruitment direction: The pet food industry continues to grow steadily, with niche categories such as pet treats seeing rapid demand growth. Platforms can prioritize recruiting pet food brands with strong R&D capabilities and complete product portfolios. Meanwhile, the third-party contract manufacturing sector has low concentration, leaving large room for expansion for leading manufacturers, who can also be targeted as key recruitment targets.

3. Risk control reminder: When onboarding pet food companies, platforms need to conduct thorough background checks to verify corporate compliance, and avoid the type of information disclosure non-compliance seen in Fubei's case. Platforms also need to evaluate the operational health of applicant companies, and implement targeted risk prevention for companies with consecutive years of declining performance, a strategy of prioritizing marketing over R&D, and unreasonable cash flow allocation.

This article uses Fubei Pet Food's Hong Kong IPO refiling as a case study to present new characteristics and emerging issues in China's current pet food industry, offering high research value for industry researchers, with core takeaways as follows:

1. New industry trends: China's pet food industry maintains steady growth, and precision pet parenting is driving category structure upgrading, with niche categories such as pet treats achieving rapid growth. Industry players have strong enthusiasm for capitalization, and leading contract manufacturers generally adopt an ODM+OBM dual-track business model. Expanding into overseas markets has become a new growth direction for the industry.

2. New emerging industry issues: Industry growth dividends are not evenly distributed, and clear performance divergence has emerged among companies, with most players facing the dilemma of rising revenue without profit growth or even falling profits. Many companies have fallen into the trap of prioritizing marketing over R&D, continuously cutting R&D investment and eroding long-term competitiveness. Some companies have information disclosure compliance issues during the capitalization process, and large dividend distributions ahead of IPO have also raised market questions about the rationality of their fundraising plans.

3. Recommended research directions: Researchers can further explore the advantages and disadvantages of the dual-track business model for pet food contract manufacturers, the core driving factors behind industry performance divergence, and compliance issues in pet food companies' capitalization processes, to explore paths for the healthy development of China's pet food industry.