Hugo Galvao de Franca Filho, who is the founder and CEO of Enjoy Pets, hears this claim treated almost as an article of faith across the pet industry: pet spending is recession-proof, immune to the belt-tightening that hits every other retail category. The claim has real history behind it. It is also more complicated than the version most people repeat.
Why the myth has genuine roots
The evidence for pet spending’s resilience is not made up. During the 2007 to 2011 recession, overall American household spending fell by more than seven percent while spending on pets actually rose by a similar margin over the same period. More recently, a 2022 survey of pet-owning households found pet products and services to be among the least affected categories when families started cutting back, trailing only spending on medicine and healthcare.
That track record is real, and it explains why the phrase gets repeated so confidently. What it does not mean is that pet spending is untouched by economic pressure. It means the category holds up unusually well compared to almost everything else, which is a meaningfully different claim.
What actually happens when money gets tight
Look closely at how pet owners behave during genuine financial strain, and a more nuanced pattern appears. Recent data on pet food purchasing shows owners have started trading down to smaller pack sizes and less expensive brands as cost pressure persists, a shift analysts had not expected to see so clearly in this category. Spending at dedicated pet stores has dipped as some owners shift toward grocery retailers instead, chasing convenience and lower prices rather than abandoning pet food purchases altogether. Veterinary spending has softened too, with some of that gap likely absorbed by rising pet insurance adoption rather than owners simply skipping care.
None of this looks like the collapse a truly discretionary category would experience. Hugo Galvao says it looks like a category that survives real pressure by quietly shifting where and what people buy, rather than by staying completely unchanged.
Why the distinction matters for a pet business
A business that takes the recession-proof myth literally can end up dangerously overconfident about exactly the wrong things. Assuming a premium-only catalog will hold up regardless of economic conditions ignores clear evidence that even loyal pet owners trade down on brand tier and pack size once pressure builds. Assuming customers will keep buying through the same channel regardless of price ignores the documented shift toward cheaper retailers when budgets tighten.
The category’s real resilience lies in the fact that owners keep buying something for their pets almost no matter what. As sustained by Hugo Galvao de Franca Filho, it does not lie in owners buying the exact same premium product, from the exact same store, at the exact same price, regardless of what is happening to their household budget.
Building a business around the real pattern
The practical response is not to panic about downturns, since the data clearly shows this category weathers them better than most. It is to make sure a catalog and pricing strategy have room to absorb the trade-down behavior that shows up even among loyal customers during real pressure, rather than being built entirely around the assumption that price sensitivity does not apply here. A pet business with a genuine value tier alongside its premium offerings tends to retain customers through a downturn that a purely premium-positioned competitor might start losing to a grocery store shelf instead.
Hugo Galvao has kept this distinction in mind while shaping Enjoy Pets’ catalog strategy, treating the category’s resilience as real but never absolute. More on that approach is available at www.enjoypets.com.br.