The Remarkable History of Pet Food in Europe

The next time you pop open a can of cat food or pour a bowl of kibble, you’re participating in an industry barely 160 years old. Before a lightning-rod salesman named James Spratt watched stray dogs devour sailors’ biscuits on an English dock in 1860, European pets survived on whatever their owners could spare—bread crusts, bare bones, and butcher-shop leftovers. Today, Europe’s pet food market generates €29.3 billion annually and feeds roughly 200 million cats and dogs across the continent. The journey between those two points is a story of war, ingenuity, scandal, and a deepening bond between humans and their animals.

Bread, Bones, and Butcher’s Offal: Feeding Pets Before Spratt

For most of European history, there was no such thing as “pet food.” Dogs and cats ate what humans didn’t want.

The Roman writer Marcus Terentius Varro advised in 37 BCE that dogs should receive scraps of meat, bones, and barley bread soaked in milk—one of the earliest written feeding guides. A century later, Columella recommended whey, barley flour, and bread soaked in bean broth. These weren’t pampered lapdogs; they were working animals earning their keep.

Medieval Europe followed a similar logic. Royal kennels employed dedicated cooks who prepared vast stews of grains, vegetables, and offal—hearts, livers, and lungs from livestock. The French nobleman Gaston III wrote one of the most influential hunting manuals of the era, Livre de la Chasse (1387), detailing how hounds should receive bran bread and meat from the hunt, with sick dogs getting goat’s milk, bean broth, or buttered eggs. Ordinary household dogs had it far worse, surviving on crusts, bare bones, potatoes, and whatever they could scrounge. Cats, meanwhile, largely fed themselves.

By the 18th and early 19th centuries, a rudimentary market was forming. The Sportsman’s Dictionary (1785) recommended barley meal mixed with broth or skimmed milk. In cities, entrepreneurs collected dead horses from streets and sold the meat to dog owners. Commercially produced dog biscuits predated Spratt by decades—a Mr. Smith’s manufactory near Maidenhead was churning out five tons of dog biscuits per week as early as 1828. But these were plain, unbranded products. Nobody had yet imagined turning pet feeding into a proper industry.

A Lightning-Rod Salesman Invents an Empire

The founding myth of commercial pet food goes like this: around 1860, James Spratt—an American electrician from Cincinnati—traveled to England on business. At the Liverpool docks, he watched dogs eagerly devouring hardtack, the rock-hard ship’s biscuits that sustained sailors on long voyages. The sight sparked an idea.

Spratt developed “Spratt’s Patent Meat Fibrine Dog Cakes”—a mixture of wheat, vegetables, beetroot, and “the dried unsalted gelatinous parts of Prairie Beef.” He patented the formula in 1861 and built his first oven in 1870 at a former armory factory in Poplar, East London.

What made Spratt different from the anonymous biscuit-makers before him was his genius for marketing. He targeted wealthy English gentlemen with sporting dogs, pricing his product at about a day’s wages for a skilled craftsman per 50-pound bag. He erected what is believed to be the first color billboard in London, depicting a dramatic buffalo hunt to suggest the exotic origins of his mysterious meat. He also hired a young college leaver named Charles Cruft as a travelling salesman—the same Cruft who would later found the world-famous Crufts Dog Show in 1891.

Spratt pioneered the tactic—still used by pet food companies today—of demonizing table scraps. His marketing claimed that fresh beef could “overheat the dog’s blood” and that leftovers would “break down his digestive powers, making him prematurely old and fat.” By 1896, the Poplar factory employed 500 to 600 workers and ran on 11 steam engines. Britain effectively monopolized commercial pet food for almost 50 years.

Two World Wars Reshape What Pets Eat

The early 20th century brought dramatic upheaval. In 1922, the Chappel Brothers of Illinois introduced Ken-L Ration, the first mass-produced canned dog food, made from horse meat that had become abundantly cheap after World War I rendered cavalry horses obsolete. The product was wildly successful — by 1941, canned food held 90% of the commercial dog food market.

The Chappel Brothers also established a canning operation in Manchester, England. In 1934–35, Forrest Mars Sr. — the American confectionery heir who had relocated to Britain — acquired this facility and rebranded its output as Chappie, marking Mars’s entry into pet food. By 1939, Mars had also launched Kitekat, one of Britain’s first branded cat foods.

Then came World War II, and everything changed.

The war’s opening days produced one of the most heartbreaking episodes in pet history. In September 1939, the National Air Raid Precautions Animals Committee advised British pet owners that if they could not send animals to the countryside, it was “kindest to have them destroyed.” The result was catastrophic: an estimated 750,000 cats and dogs were euthanized within the first week of the war—six times more than all British civilian bombing deaths during the entire conflict.

For pets that survived, feeding them became a daily struggle. There was no official food ration for cats or dogs in Britain. The Waste of Food Order of August 1940 made it a criminal offense—punishable by two years in prison—to feed animals food fit for human consumption. Owners shared their own meager rations or purchased horse meat on the gray market.

The war’s most lasting impact on pet food was technological. With tin and metal commandeered for munitions, canned pet food production virtually ceased. Manufacturers pivoted to dry formulations, borrowing techniques from the cereal and livestock-feed industries. This wartime necessity laid the groundwork for the kibble revolution that would follow.

The Golden Age of Kibble and Canned Food

The post-war economic boom transformed pet food from a niche luxury into an everyday household staple. Rising incomes, suburban living, the spread of supermarkets, and the cultural shift toward treating pets as family members all fueled explosive growth.

The pivotal technological breakthrough came in 1956–57, when Ralston Purina adapted extrusion technology—originally developed for breakfast cereals—to create the first modern dry kibble, Purina Dog Chow. This process cooked ingredients under high pressure and temperature, producing uniform, palatable, shelf-stable pellets that could be cheaply packaged in cardboard boxes. The technology spread to Europe over the following decade.

In France, veterinary surgeon Dr. Jean Cathary noticed a growing number of pets with skin and coat problems caused by poor nutrition from table scraps. In 1968, he developed a cereal-based recipe in his garage, imported an extrusion machine from the United States, and founded Royal Canin in the southern town of Aimargues—becoming the first manufacturer of dry pet food in France and the first European company to use an extruder. By the mid-1970s, Royal Canin products were sold in eight European countries.

Meanwhile, Mars was building an empire. The company launched Pal in 1954, introduced Chum in 1960, and established the Waltham Centre for Pet Nutrition in 1963 to fund serious nutritional research. In 1972, the company rebranded as Pedigree Petfoods. Whiskas followed a similar trajectory, from a dry supplement to Europe’s dominant cat food brand. By 1991, Mars controlled 60% of the UK pet food market.

An Oligopoly Emerges from Acquisitions

Today’s European pet food market is dominated by two corporate giants whose acquisition trails read like a masterclass in consolidation.

Mars Petcare built its portfolio through organic growth and strategic purchases: Chappie (1934), Kitekat (1939), Pedigree and Whiskas (developed internally), and critically, Royal Canin (acquired in 2002). Mars also invested in veterinary services, acquiring the AniCura chain across continental Europe and the Linnaeus group in the UK in 2018.

Nestlé took a different path, assembling its portfolio primarily through acquisitions. The Swiss giant bought Carnation (and its Friskies brand) in 1985, acquired Spillers Pet Foods — including Winalot and Felix — in 1998, and then made its defining move in 2001: purchasing Ralston Purina for $10.3 billion to create Nestlé Purina PetCare. In 2020, Nestlé added the British premium brand Lily’s Kitchen.

The result is an effective oligopoly. Mars and Nestlé each produce multiple competing brands that give the appearance of a diverse marketplace, while smaller European players like Affinity Petcare (Spain), Heristo (Germany), and Monge (Italy) fill specialist niches. The industry employs 118,000 people directly and 950,000 indirectly across more than 500 manufacturing plants.

How Regulation Caught Up with an Industry

Europe’s pet food regulatory framework is among the world’s most comprehensive, shaped in large part by crisis. The industry trade body FEDIAF (European Pet Food Industry Federation) was founded in 1970 and today represents approximately 400 companies producing over 90% of European pet food.

The pivotal regulatory catalyst was the BSE (mad cow disease) crisis of the 1980s and 1990s. Over 100 cats in the UK died from feline spongiform encephalopathy linked to contaminated bovine by-products in pet food. The fallout prompted the creation of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) in 2002 and a sweeping overhaul of rules governing animal by-products. Today, EU Regulation 1069/2009 stipulates that only Category 3 materials — those fit for human consumption but not intended for it — may be used in pet food.

The current regulatory framework encompasses at least 31 separate laws and rules, including Regulation 767/2009 (governing pet food labeling and marketing), Regulation 183/2005 (requiring HACCP-based hygiene systems), and Regulation 1831/2003 (pre-market approval of all feed additives). European pet food labels must declare ingredients in descending order by weight, list analytical constituents, and even provide a free consumer telephone number.

From Insect Protein to Cultured Mouse Meat

The most dramatic shifts in European pet food today reflect broader societal change. Seventy percent of European pet owners now describe their animals as family members, and 85% believe nutrition is equally important for pets and humans. This "humanization" trend is the primary engine behind premiumization, with nearly 60% of owners actively seeking premium and specialized products.

Several trends are reshaping the market simultaneously. The raw food (BARF) movement has seen a significant revival, with 38% of French dog owners now feeding non-conventional diets, including raw, homemade, or organic food. Grain-free diets surged in popularity before facing scrutiny when the US FDA investigated a potential link to dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) in dogs, though no formal regulatory action was taken in Europe.

Sustainability is increasingly driving innovation. Insect protein now accounts for roughly 7% of the German pet food market, with experts forecasting double-digit annual growth. Producing one kilogram of insect protein generates only 14 kg of greenhouse gases versus up to 175 kg for beef protein. In April 2025, BioCraft and Prefera launched what they described as Europe’s first cat food made from cultured mouse meat—a product that would have baffled James Spratt.

Direct-to-consumer subscription services represent another frontier. Companies like Butternut Box and tails.com (now owned by Nestlé Purina, blending custom kibble from over a million possible combinations) report 40–50% annual subscriber growth. Online pet food sales are projected to grow at 5.7% annually through 2030.

A €29 Billion Industry Still Finding Its Appetite

According to FEDIAF’s 2025 report, the European pet food industry generated €29.3 billion in sales in 2023, with an additional €24.6 billion in related services and accessories. Europe is home to approximately 299 million pets, with 49% of the continent’s 139 million households owning at least one animal. Cats lead at 108 million, followed by 90 million dogs. The largest national markets are the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, with Spain expected to see the fastest growth at 6.4–7.0% annually through 2030.

The industry has come an almost inconceivable distance from that dockside moment in 1860. What began as one man’s observation about stray dogs and stale biscuits has become a continent-spanning ecosystem of nutritional science, regulatory rigor, and consumer sophistication. Yet the core tension that Spratt first exploited—between what we could feed our pets and what we should feed them—remains as alive as ever. Today’s debates about raw versus kibble, insect protein versus traditional meat, and personalized nutrition versus mass production are simply the latest chapter in a story that began with table scraps and a clever American salesman on an English dock.