Understanding The Pet Treat Category Today

The bottom line up front

The pet treats category is governed by affection — nearly half of all purchase occasions start with a simple impulse to show love — yet the brands winning today aren’t the most emotionally resonant; they’re the ones that show up broadest across the widest range of situations. Milk-Bone leads mental availability through sheer versatility, not differentiation. Temptations holds the deepest emotional connection. Blue Buffalo surfaces in more minds than any competitor but converts the fewest into buyers. The strategic question isn’t who pet owners think of — it’s why so many brands are thought of broadly but bought narrowly, and whether price friction or occasion-specific positioning is the real bottleneck.

The Pet Treat Category Today

Milk-Bone is the front door of pet treats, but it’s a wide-open door. With ~17% Mental Market Share, Milk-Bone leads the category by showing up across nearly every purchase occasion — grocery runs, training, entertainment, replenishment. Its Network Size (~7.8 CEPs per linked consumer) is the highest in the category alongside Temptations. But this breadth comes without distinctive emotional connection (3.7 on a 7-point scale, mid-pack). Milk-Bone is the brand consumers default to; it’s not the one they feel strongly about.

Temptations is the category’s emotional anchor — and it’s owned by older buyers. At ~12% MMS and the highest Emotional Connection score in the category (4.0), Temptations combines strong recall with genuine affection. But its mental availability nearly doubles between younger adults (~8% MMS among 18–34s) and seniors (~17% among 65+), making it the most age-dependent brand in the set. As Millennials — the defining pet-owning generation — continue to drive the category, Temptations risks aging alongside its current base unless it widens its generational aperture. 

Blue Buffalo is the most recognized brand that underperforms on purchase. It holds the highest Mental Penetration in the category (~81% of consumers link it to at least one CEP) and dominates the premium-quality occasions — specific ingredients, vet recommendations, variety, and online ordering. Yet it converts at among the lowest rates (~14% def/prob will purchase next year). This gap between mental availability and purchase intent is the clearest signal in the data that Blue Buffalo’s bottleneck is friction — likely price — not awareness.

A cluster of dental specialists holds defensible but narrow ground. Greenies, Pedigree Dentastix, and Purina Dentalife collectively dominate the dental health CEP (each capturing ~53–57% association), but their mental availability outside that occasion is limited. Greenies, in particular, punches well above its weight among $100K+ households (MMS nearly doubles from ~6% at <$50K to ~13%) — a premium niche, but a niche nonetheless.

Who Are Pet Treat Buyers?

The Moments That Matter

The top purchase triggers are affectionate, habitual, and convenience-driven — not health-focused or aspirational. The category enters through the heart and the shopping list, not the vet’s office.

“Treating my pet just because I love them” (~47%) — the single largest entry point, and it rewards breadth over specialization. Temptations, Milk-Bone, and Blue Buffalo all compete above 44% association here. No brand owns this moment — it’s the most contested CEP in the category.

“Running low on treats at home” (~37%) — a replenishment trigger that rewards habitual brands already in the pantry. Temptations and Milk-Bone lead at ~45% each. Loyalty at replenishment is disproportionately valuable.

“Picking up treats while doing my regular grocery shopping” (~31%) — a convenience trigger governed by shelf presence. Milk-Bone and Temptations dominate (~47% and ~45%), reflecting their mass-retail distribution advantage. Brands not on the grocery shelf are invisible in this moment.

Secondary triggers include dental health (~26%), keeping pets occupied (~25%), and training (~24%). Dental health is the only occasion with clear brand ownership (Greenies, Dentastix, Dentalife). Most other CEPs are contested battlegrounds.

How Segments Differ

The core mental structure holds across demographics. What shifts is brand weighting and occasion emphasis:

Income: The clearest segmentation lever. Greenies MMS nearly doubles from <$50K (~6%) to $100K+ (~13%). Blue Buffalo follows the same gradient. Friskies Party Mix reverses — stronger among lower-income segments (~9%) and weaker among affluent buyers (~5%). Price-led and premium-led strategies target structurally different consumers.

Age: Temptations’ MMS among 65+ (~17%) is more than double its share among 18–34s (~8%) — the starkest age gradient in the category. Milk-Bone, counterintuitively, indexes highest among 18–34s (~18% MMS). Younger buyers are forming their first associations now, and Milk-Bone’s accessibility is landing.

Parents: Parents show elevated MMS for Milk-Bone (~19% vs ~16% non-parents) and Pup-Peroni (~10% vs ~8%), reinforcing these as household-occasion brands. Greenies and Temptations are relatively flat across parental status.

What's Blocking Conversion

Price friction is the dominant barrier. ~30% cite treats being priced higher than alternatives — the single largest obstacle. This is universal across income segments but particularly conversion-suppressive where recall already exceeds purchase, as with Blue Buffalo and Greenies. Transparent value messaging and subscription pricing are the clearest levers.

Availability and stock friction compounds the price problem. ~22% report out-of-stock issues, ~18% can’t find the brand at their usual store, and ~18% must travel to a different retailer. For brands with strong digital and specialty presence (Blue Buffalo, Greenies) but weak mass-retail distribution, this is a physical availability gap masquerading as a brand problem.

Online and convenience friction is an emerging barrier. ~18% cite shipping costs, and ~13% say the brand isn’t available for online ordering. Given that pet product buyers are among the most digitally active consumer segments (78% Amazon Prime usage), the brands solving for e-commerce friction — auto-delivery, subscription, free shipping thresholds — will capture a disproportionate share of the convenience-motivated buyer.

Why This Matters Now

Diagnose before spending. Blue Buffalo holds the broadest mental penetration in the category but among the lowest purchase conversion — the bottleneck is price and availability friction, not awareness. Awareness spending will underperform; investment in distribution, subscription pricing, and value-framing will generate higher returns.

The “love treat” moment is unowned — and it’s worth half the category. At ~47% salience, treating a pet “just because” is the single largest purchase trigger, and no brand holds more than ~48% association. This is the most valuable contested CEP in pet treats. The brand that credibly anchors itself to everyday affection — through pack design, in-store placement, and emotional creative — captures the category’s center of gravity. 

Cat ownership is the growth story, but the mental landscape is dog-dominant. Cat ownership has grown ~8pp since 2018, outpacing dogs. Yet the treats mental landscape — Milk-Bone, Pup-Peroni, Beggin’ — is structurally dog-weighted. Temptations and Friskies Party Mix are the primary cat-treat recall brands. As cat households expand (particularly among younger generations), the brands building cat-specific mental availability now are investing ahead of the curve.

Breadth beats depth — but only if conversion follows. The brands with the widest recall networks (Milk-Bone, Temptations, Blue Buffalo) are best positioned structurally. But breadth without friction removal produces awareness that doesn’t convert. The winning formula is: show up in many moments, and be easy to buy in all of them.

About this research

Morning Consult conducts over 30,000 daily proprietary surveys in 45 countries covering more than 5,000 brands and 50 economic indicators. 

Our category advantage research is aimed at understanding the needs driving consumers in your category — and how your brand can own more of them. This research is built on validated principles of brand-driven growth and powered by Morning Consult’s industry-leading sampling technology.

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Capture both mental availability (the likelihood your brand comes to mind when consumers face a need or occasion) and emotional closeness (how strongly consumers connect with your brand), benchmarked against competitors.

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Directly tied to mental availability, see the specific needs, occasions, and triggers that drive purchase decisions in your category, and how strongly your brand is linked to them.

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