Consumer confidence in South Africa is under real pressure: roughly half of households cut back on discretionary spending last year and retail sales volumes were flat in the first quarter of 2026.
And yet one consumer category grew nearly 16% in 2025 and is on track to almost double in size by the early 2030s. Not electronics. Not travel. Not even groceries broadly. It is pet care.
I run one of the businesses inside that number, and I don’t think this is really a story about pets. It’s about what happens when spending on the things people consider essential holds up even as everything discretionary gets cut, and which businesses are built for that kind of loyalty.
The humanisation economy has arrived
Globally, this shift has already reshaped an entire industry. US-based The Farmer’s Dog and UK-based Butternut Box have between them raised more than half a billion dollars in growth capital.
They aren’t betting on dog food. They’re betting on the fact that for a growing number of households a pet has quietly moved from “animal” to “family member” and family members don’t get hit first by discretionary-spending cuts.
South Africa is following the same pattern: Trade Intelligence puts the local pet care sector at R10.4bn, growing close to 16% a year even as households pull back elsewhere, making it one of the more resilient categories in the country right now.
The growth is a layer, not a shift
It would be easy to read that number as pet owners trading up wholesale, swapping econo brands for premium alternatives. They’re not. Roughly 60%–65% of South African cat and dog owners still spend R800 or less a month on pet food, and prices have risen by as much as 50%–78% in recent years. Dry food and pellets remain the non-negotiable anchor purchase for most households, and that base isn’t moving.
The growth is happening on top of that base, not instead of it. Industry research describes it as a “base plus supplement” pattern: owners keep buying the affordable staple, then add a treat, a portion of wet food or a fresh top-up where they can, a small, protected indulgence layered onto a fixed budget.
That layer ― fresh, premium, protected ― is where humanisation shows up in the numbers, and it’s the same layer global capital has bet on with The Farmer’s Dog and Butternut Box: a smaller, higher-margin slice of a far larger, price-capped category.
If you’re trying to work out which parts of your own customer base will hold in a downturn, the question isn’t whether they’ll spend more, it’s what they’ll add back first, even on a tight budget.
Building inside that tension
I didn’t start Happy Hounds chasing a market trend. I started it because I wanted the best possible life for my own dogs, four rescues I call the Kaye Kids, who are my world. I believed they deserve real, nourishing food.
That’s the same instinct behind the layer of the category that’s actually growing: owners adding a fresh, human-grade option where they can, because their pet is family. I’ve watched that instinct hold up in my own business; demand has grown every year since we started.
But this need not necessarily be unique to pet food. Any founder building a premium, values-led product is solving the same problem: earning a place in the one category your customer refuses to cut, instead of the many they will. The category happens to be dogs. The problem isn’t.
Why this matters beyond the pet aisle
South Africa’s growth story over the next decade won’t be written by categories that grow because consumers have more money. It will be written by categories that grow despite consumers having less because they sit at the intersection of something people won’t cut and something they can still afford.
Pet care is one visible example. It won’t be the last. The businesses worth watching are the ones building inside that tension.
• Kaye is founder and CEO of fresh dog food business Happy Hounds.
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