Short answer: Pet packaging in Australia is now designed for the pet parent, not the pet owner. The brands winning shelf space borrow their cues from human food and wellness, back their claims with visible substance, and treat the soft plastic pouch problem as a design constraint from day one.
Few Australian categories have grown as quickly, or changed character as completely, as pet care. Animal Medicines Australia's 2025 Pets in Australia survey found that 73 per cent of households now home at least one pet, an estimated 31.6 million animals across 7.7 million households. Owners spend around $21.3 billion a year on their pets, and food is by far the biggest line item at roughly $9.8 billion. For anyone briefing or designing a pet pack, that scale changes what the work has to do.
A category that keeps compounding
The spend is not just wide, it is deepening. Market analysts at Mordor Intelligence value Australian pet food at about USD 3.9 billion in 2025 and forecast steady growth of around five per cent a year into the next decade, with the premium, fresh and super-premium segments growing fastest. Manufacturing is following the money: Mars Petcare has invested $112.6 million in a Wodonga pouch facility capable of producing 290 million single-serve pouches a year, bringing production for brands like Whiskas, Dine and Optimum onshore.
Growth like this attracts challengers, and challengers crowd the shelf. The pet aisle in an Australian supermarket or pet specialty store is now one of the most visually competitive in the building, which is precisely why design quality has become a commercial lever rather than a finishing touch.
Humanisation changed who the pack talks to
The single biggest shift in pet branding is who the design addresses. The buyer is not a pet owner replenishing supplies; surveys consistently show Australians treating pets as family members, and dog-owning households now spend an average of about $2,520 a year on their dogs. Packs that win with this buyer look and read like human food and wellness products: ingredient-led photography, plain-English nutrition stories, provenance claims, and typography that would not look out of place in the health food aisle.
In practice, humanisation shows up in a few repeatable design moves:
- Food-grade cues. Real ingredient imagery, appetite appeal and recipe language, borrowed directly from premium human food.
- Wellness framing. Functional benefits such as gut health, skin and coat, joints and calming, presented the way supplements present theirs.
- Transparency. Named protein sources, Australian origin claims and clear feeding guidance. Vague meat and meal language reads as a red flag to this buyer.
- Emotional warmth without kitsch. The paw print and cartoon dog era is fading at the premium end; personality now comes from voice and colour rather than clip art.
Premium cues that survive the Australian shelf
Premiumisation only works if the pack can defend the price. On shelf, that defence is built from restraint: fewer claims stated with more confidence, generous clear space, a strong brand block that survives a crowded planogram, and finishes chosen deliberately rather than maximally. It also means designing the range as a system. Pet brands extend quickly across life stages, breeds, proteins and formats, and a pack architecture that cannot flex will fracture into inconsistency within two range extensions.
The pouch problem is a branding problem
Pet food's favourite format is also its hardest sustainability story. Most wet food pouches and dry food bags are multi-layer soft plastics, and Australia's kerbside systems do not accept them. Since the collapse of REDcycle in late 2022, brands have had few honest options for the recyclability story on pack, and the Australasian Recycling Label's Check Locally mark is the accurate label for most of these formats. Momentum is returning: the ACCC approved the Soft Plastic Stewardship Australia scheme in late 2025, and new processing capacity is coming online, while Mars has committed to packaging that is 100 per cent reusable, recyclable or compostable, including a shift toward mono-material pouches that mechanical recycling can eventually handle.
For designers, the practical takeaway is to treat the sustainability claim as a compliance item, not a marketing flourish. Overstating recyclability on a soft plastic pack is both a greenwashing risk and a trust risk with exactly the buyer premium pet brands are courting. Say what is true, use the correct ARL mark, and let material choices carry the story as infrastructure catches up.
What to put in a pet packaging brief
- Who the buyer is and where they shop: grocery, pet specialty or online changes the pack's job.
- The range plan for the next two years, so the architecture is designed to flex from day one.
- Named claims you can substantiate, and the ones you wish you could but cannot.
- The format and material direction, including the honest recyclability position and correct ARL usage.
- The shelf you must win: photograph it and include it in the brief.
Pet is one of the most rewarding categories in Australian packaging right now, and one of the least forgiving of generic work. If you are briefing a project, start with studios that have shipped packs in the aisle: browse pet packaging designers in the directory, or use the brief builder to get the project on paper first.
General information to help you plan, not legal or professional advice. Market figures are drawn from the sources named in the text and were current at the time of writing. Always confirm current requirements with the relevant body or your designer before you print.