Exploring Predictors of US Consumers’ Pet Food Preferences—Spoiling Them One Bite at a Time!

The present study is dedicated to exploring key factors impacting US pet owners’ preferences for brand, price, country of origin, and health and nutrition claims as important extrinsic and credence attributes. Pet engagement and subjective and objective knowledge, as well as varying forms of pet humanisation behaviour, were thought to be suitable factors. The study is of an explorative and quantitative nature, rooted in an online consumer survey, descriptive statistics, and partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). To strengthen the PLS-SEM model, relative preference shares derived from a best–worst analysis were integrated into the model. The results with the strongest effect sizes indicate that US pet owners’ objective knowledge is positively associated with pet non-humanisation behaviour, those who actively engage with their pet are positively associated with loving humanisation behaviour, and that health and nutritional claims on pet food are less important for those reporting non-humanisation behaviours. The analysis between the varying types of pet humanisation behaviours and the best–worst-derived relative preferences for extrinsic and credence attributes provides a diverse picture. Together, the results suggest that pet engagement and both subjective and objective knowledge are associated with pet humanisation behaviour, which are differentially linked to the importance of pet food product attributes. Best practice recommendations for marketers in the pet food industry are provided.