Yahoo Finance Cannabidiol boom sets its sights on a new market: Pets
The exploding market for cannabidiol, otherwise known as CBD, is betting big on pets.
As a whole, CBD in the U.S. alone is expected to reach $24 billion by 2023, with pets taking up 7% of those market sales, according to data from Brightfield Group.
The substance — a derivative of marijuana, but stripped of its intoxicating properties — is increasingly in demand as a relaxation tool.
“This is one of the fastest growing categories this year, just behind beauty products and drinks. The category is exploding,” Brightfield Group Managing Director Bethany Gomez told Yahoo Finance’s YFi PM in an interview this week.
And pets are a budding market for CBD use, she added. “It’s exploding into veterinary shops, it’s being sold through small independent pet retailers.”
Many larger companies in the pet market are waiting for the regulatory situation for the product to be straightened out. Yet Gomez said that “there’s some rumors that there may be products being sold through the largest pet chains here soon as well.”
CBD hasn’t yet been certified by regulators, and some local governments have even moved to ban the product. However, that hasn’t stopped the market from growing exponentially.
Gomez says that people are flocking to these CBD products because they are said to be “very effective for separation anxiety, for arthritis, for bone and joint health.”
Those same reasons extend to pets, she said, “and dogs in particular.”
Growth in the pet industry has escalated recently on the back of owners willing to spend large sums of money on more high-end products for their dogs and cats. Gomez said that pets are living longer, and in turn, “pet owners are really looking for alternative solutions to be able to help them.”
As pet owners lavish all sorts of luxuries on their domestic animals, the market has exploded, Gomez pointed out.
“The global pet market is at about $130 billion because people just want to take care of their pets like they do their children,” she added.
McKenzie DeGroot is a producer at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter: @degrootmckenzie
Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, SmartNews, LinkedIn, YouTube, and reddit.
