Feline allergies are a common source of allergens, affecting up to 15% of adults and children causing symptoms such as severe asthma. Data from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey indicates that over 5 million asthma attacks occur each year, with ~350,000 emergency room visits attributed to patients sensitized and exposed to feline allergens.
Anaphylactogen of the major feline allergen, Fel d 1 (Felis domesticus allergen 1), elicits IgE responses in >90% of cat-allergic individuals. Feline allergens are produced by the sebaceous, salivary, and lacrimal glands of cats, and the highest Fel d 1 levels are found in saliva. When cats groom themselves, Fel d 1 is transferred from saliva to their hair, and cat dander containing Fel d 1 allergen is then spreaded to the environment as small airborne particles.
Due to the characteristics of Fel d1, some places where stray cats gather or even used to gather will leave a lot of Fel d1 protein, which will lead to allergic reactions in some allergic people passing by. So what our team intends to do not only can deal with the problem of domestic cats, but can extend this to stray cats. If we can achieve this target, it may have a better effect of preventing allergies at the social level.
However, nowadays,some treatments like allergy medication, pet spray, specific cat food products and so on,still have trouble in solving the allergic problem at its root. Given the drawbacks such as high cost, limited effectiveness, and the need for frequent usage. Therefore, from the perspectives of practicality and importance, our project is very necessary.
Through the analysis of the market research and the overall social environment, what we have discovered is that the environment at present is also benefit to us. From the policy perspective, it can be seen that the national policy on keeping pets is gradually relaxed. At the same time, the relevant regional departments devolve funds to support the pet industry, introduce and develop pet food, supplies, training, medical treatment, etc., as well as create a whole chain of pet industry to build related industrial parks.
industrial park in central China - Henan Luohe Pet Park[2].
The Model of Veterinary Drug Instructions for Pets formulated by the Ministry of Agriculture helps the healthy and stable development of the pet industry.
From the economic perspective, the per capita disposable income of Chinese urban residents has increased significantly, which plays a crucial role in driving the growth of pet consumption power, increasing of family pet consumption investment, expanding the scope of consumption from products to services, medical and other perspectives so that stimulates the economic development of the pet industry.
From the technical perspective, with the application of intelligent technology to the pet industry, it has propelled the data technology, products and model continue to break through innovation. For example, pet MCN companies like Star Pet show have been continuously sought after through Pet KOL. Short videos and live broadcasts have promoted the "Sucking Pet Online" craze.
To sum up, from the perspective of the overall social environment, our project can receive good policy and economic support.
Not only that, our project has a very good market environment. It is indeed evident from data [6], as we can see that with the continuous increase of the number of pets in China, the scale of pet economy industry expands, and China's pet food industry also displays an increasing trend year by year. As the expected direction of our project product is pet food, the yearly expanding pet food market is very favourable for our product's sales.
Furthermore, share of China's pet products market segmentation data show that, at this stage, in addition to meeting the basic physiological needs of pets, pet owners also pay special attention to pets' cleaning and care, entertainment and dress up, etc.These tend to become new growth point for pet products which inspired us to start business through them.
As the consumers driving the booming pet economy are our potential users, we analyze the persona, too. According to the data, the demand of pet food and snacks from Chinese pet food consumers are so high that respectively reached 63.4% and 57%, reflecting the rigid demand for pet food. Therefore, our project products have the tendency to start from here, in the form of cat food or cat snacks.
The data showed that chinese consumers paied the most attention to pet food on pet preference, easy purchase and palatability, indicating us to make our products more competitive in these aspects.
The higher the degree of attention, the higher the score, the full score is 5 ; Sample size: N=1536; urvey time: June 2022
Also, relying on the data, integrated e-commerce and short video platforms are the main ways for Chinese pet food consumers to obtain information. Distinctively, the production data and food formula of pet food on the e-commerce platform are more intuitive than others. What's more, the functions such as the live broadcast, comments and so on allow the product details more available to consumers. For this, consumers may more desires to purchase and buy products consequently. It also inspires us that we can leverage today's extremely advanced online platforms for marketing.
On the basic of nowadays booming market condictions of pet economy, coupled with the policy and economic support, our project is hopeful to have a bright future and splendid momentum.
[1] Pingyang to create a new blue ocean pet industry, Wenzhou Municipal People's Government, https://www.wenzhou.gov.cn/art/2023/5/6/art_1217829_59204850.html.
[2] Henan Luohe: Government and business cooperation to create the whole industrial chain ecosystem of pet economy, Wei pet navigation network, https://www.petdhw.com/show-18282.html.
[3] shujujidi, China's Per Capita Disposable Income and Annual Growth Rate (1978-2021), https://www.shujujidi.com/caijing/111.html.
[4] National Bureau of Statistics, Household income and consumption expenditure in the first half of 2023, http://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/zxfb/202307/t20230715_1941274.html.
[5] National Bureau of Statistics, Household income and consumption expenditure in 2022, http://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/zxfb/202302/t20230203_1901715.html.
[6] iiMedia Report, Monitoring report on China's pet food market and consumption behavior from 2021 to 2022, https://www.cbndata.com/report/2871/detail?isReading=report&page=1.