Marco Pozzali, private label manager of VéGé, explained: ‘Zoomark International is the ideal meeting time to focus on the novelties, avoiding that these are presented at the end of the usual meetings in the offices, which have lately focused almost exclusively on such topics as inflation and volumes, unavoidable, but which often distract attention from innovation that can be brought to the shelves’. In the pet care and pet food sector, the VéGé Group operates with private label products under ‘Mucho Amor’ brand. ‘I can confirm that this trademark is the one with the widest coverage in our Group. There are 19 companies that have ordered and received all or part of the products and we believe they are destined to grow’.
The prospects for 2023 are favourable. ‘We want to consolidate our presence on the shelf and in the purchasing habits of pet owners by reaching them both through the more traditional channel and the drugstore one. We intend to expand our offer beyond the basic segment, which currently aims at offering the best ratio of price to quality for animal nutrition, proposing a specialized line for specific needs (such as for example puppies, sterilized cats, highly palatable products for more demanding animals)’.
The weight of innovation on the good performance of the department remains important. ‘Obviously, innovation plays a fundamental role for efficiency, but also for a continuous upgrade of the offer. The diversified offer is fundamental and can also be achieved thanks to continuous innovation. I would say that it is important because even in the presence of animals that participate in the choices indirectly, the owners responsible for the purchase have very different behaviours and are looking for various solutions. As we are an extremely dynamic category, we expect that some services, until recently the prerogative of specialized channels, will also find space in the supermarket channel, perhaps with a positioning that makes the purchase accessible to all pet owners.
