Germany Pet Food Market: Size, Segments and Sales Channels (2025 Data)

Cat food is the biggest and best-performing part of the German market. In bricks-and-mortar retail it reached €2,315 million in 2025, up 1.3%, with every sub-segment growing:\n\n• Wet cat food: €1,556 million (+1.1%) — by far the largest single pet food category in Germany.\n• Dry cat food: €379 million (+0.5%).\n• Snacks and cat milk: €380 million (+3.0%).\n\nFor suppliers, the weight of wet food is the key point: two thirds of German cat food spend in physical retail goes on wet formats, so a cat food range for Germany usually needs a strong wet line, not just kibble. See our guide to cat food wholesale in Germany for the sourcing side.

Dog food in bricks-and-mortar retail came to €1,753 million in 2025, essentially flat (−0.3%), but with clear differences between formats:\n\n• Dog snacks: €768 million (+2.1%) — the largest dog food sub-segment by value.\n• Wet dog food: €582 million (−1.9%).\n• Dry dog food (including semi-moist): €403 million (−2.7%).\n\nThe IVH highlights growth in dog snacks and cat food as what kept prepared pet food stable overall. Treats and chews are therefore a real opportunity in Germany, not an add-on — our treats wholesale Germany guide covers sourcing them.

ZZF and IVH count 33.4 million pets in German households (excluding ornamental fish and terrarium animals), and pets are kept in 43% of all households — and in 67% of families with children. The largest groups are:\n\n• Cats: 15.7 million, in 24% of households.\n• Dogs: 10.0 million, in 20% of households.\n• Small animals: 4.4 million, in 5% of households.\n• Ornamental birds: 3.3 million, in 3% of households.\n\nThe population figures come from a separate representative survey of 5,000 households commissioned by the two associations.

Grocery retail — including drugstores and discounters — is the main route to market for prepared pet food in Germany, with 66% of bricks-and-mortar pet food sales (€2,820 million) in 2025. Specialist trade, which covers pet shops, pet superstores, agricultural merchants and pet departments in garden centres and DIY stores, accounted for the other 34% (€1,452 million).\n\nFor supplies and accessories the picture reverses: specialist trade holds 76% (€808 million) and grocery 24% (€255 million).\n\nFor a pet food supplier this means the volume sits in grocery — where private label and value-tier ranges compete on price and retailer listing terms — while specialist retail is the natural home for premium, functional and niche formats.

Online sales of pet products in Germany were estimated at around €1,521 million in 2025, slightly up on the year (+0.6%). The associations stress that this is an expert estimate covering all pet products: species- and category-level online figures are not yet available, so there is no official split of how much of the online total is pet food. Buyers planning an online-led launch should treat any more granular German online pet food figure with caution unless its source is clear.

Outside dog and cat food, the 2025 bricks-and-mortar figures were:\n\n• Cat litter: €370 million (−1.6%) — the largest supplies category, and a meaningful volume line alongside cat food.\n• Small animal food: €76 million (−7.3%).\n• Ornamental bird food: €68 million (−3.7%).\n• Ornamental fish food (including pond food): €60 million (−3.2%).\n\nAll of these declined in 2025, so for most suppliers they are range extensions rather than a reason to enter the market on their own.

There is no official German statistic for the pet food ingredients market — the ZZF/IVH data measures retail sales of finished products, not ingredient volumes — so be wary of precise 'ingredients market' figures without a clear source. What is well defined is the rulebook ingredient choices sit in. Germany applies EU feed law rather than a separate national system: labelling and the complete vs complementary distinction follow Regulation (EC) No 767/2009, nutritional adequacy is normally substantiated against the FEDIAF nutritional guidelines, and animal-derived ingredients — including processed insect protein — fall under the EU animal by-products rules. Claims such as grain-free, organic or human-grade each carry their own substantiation requirements on top; see our grain-free pet food claims and organic pet food certification guides.

Read together, the figures point to a few practical conclusions. Wet cat food and dog snacks are where spend is concentrated and still growing, so they deserve priority in a German range. Grocery dominates pet food volume, which favours suppliers who can meet retailer private label requirements and price points, while specialist retail rewards differentiated, premium formats such as freeze-dried pet food. And because the overall market is stable rather than fast-growing, new entrants mostly win share from incumbents — which makes a clear positioning, a reliable supply programme and correct German-language labelling more important than in a market that is expanding quickly.

Candora Petcare structures wholesale and private label pet food programmes for buyers selling into Germany, from range planning around wet and dry formats through FEDIAF-aligned formulation, German labelling and logistics. For the practical buying side — import process, VAT and regulation — see our guide to pet food wholesale in Germany, and for premium formats our freeze-dried pet food Germany guide.\n\nSource for all market figures on this page: ZZF – Zentralverband der Heimtierbranche e.V. and Industrieverband Heimtierbedarf (IVH) e.V., 'Der deutsche Heimtiermarkt 2025' (data sheet and press release, 27 April 2026).