Pet food classification

Abstract

Background. The assortment of products for pets is very wide and includes va­rious subgroups. The promising market for these products is supported by data from the pet food market, which is one of the most dynamic in the world. However, other sub­groups of these products are practically not covered in the domestic literature, there are no works on the classification of the assortment of goods for animals.
The aim of the article is to develop a classification of food for them based on an analysis of the assortment of products for pets.
Materials and methods. General scientific and special methods of cognition of economic processes are applied: analysis and synthesis, system approach, comparison and generalization. Information base of the research: official data of the State Statistics Service of Ukraine and the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine, as well as the assortment of goods for animals presented in online stores.
Results. In accordance with the current classifiers, separate groupings that directly relate to products for pets are provided only for feed and brushes for caring for animals. At the UKTZED product category level, dog or cat food packaged for retail is classified according to the content of starch, glucose or glucose syrup, maltodextrin or maltodextrin syrup, lactic products.
According to the results of the analysis of the assortment of goods in the category "Products for animals" (or "Pet goods") in most online stores, including specialized ones, the attribute "Animal species" is used at the highest level of classification. At the next level of classification, products for a particular species of animals are divided into the groups "Food", "Care and hygiene", "Toys", "Utensils" and others. Another method to grou­ping this category is that the assortment of these goods is divided into 2–4 subgroups according to their functional purpose ("Food", "Toys", "Accessories", "Hygiene and care"), and at the next level – by species of animals for which the goods are intended.  
The largest share in the assortment of products for pets is food. The assortment of food for dogs and cats is classified according to almost identical characteristics: depen­ding on the age, breed, activity and state of the animal’s body, by the type of food, the main source of protein in the food, therapeutic and prophylactic purposes, class, type of packaging, mass or volume of feed in the package. The assortment of food for birds and fish is also complex: the proposed classification includes 9 characteristics. Significantly fewer traits were used to classify the assortment of food for rodents and reptiles (5 and 7 traits, respectively).
Conclusion.The market of goods for pets in Ukraine is promising, given its large potential capacity, which today is limited by the low paying capacity of the population. The assortment of goods for pets is wide and includes a significant number of assortments grouped and types of goods. The classification of pet food developed in this work indi­cates that the assortment of these products is complex and can be classified in at least 5-10 signs, depending on the type of pet for which the feed is assigned.