Incoming UK Pet Food chief executive Nicole Paley has identified misinformation as a key focus for the manufacturers’ trade association going forward.
“We’ve recently been working on a big piece around misinformation,” Paley said. “The campaign ‘Love Them Madly, Feed Them Wisely is all about trying to cut through all the stuff that’s online. that people can see through all social media channels, claiming to be scientific or knowledgeable, but it’s downright misleading and not very helpful for consumers in terms of what they choose to do.”
UK Pet Food recently took part in an AI audit, to look at how visible the association is in the world search engine optimisation, and making sure that UK Pet Food is showing up versus some of the other content that’s out there that may not be as credible.
Paley continued: “We’ve now got a really good sense of where misinformation is coming from, and where there are opportunities for UK Pet Food to fill in some of those gaps and give reassuring scientific evidence-based content, but in a way that’s easy to understand.
“The whole thing around misinformation is a huge challenge, and I think that a lot of work we’re doing on AI is going to be really helpful in that, but it’s not going to stop the challenge being there. Misinformation is definitely frustrating, but we’re not the only ones that feel that frustration, as our colleagues in the vet profession feel it as well.”
Paley said that a key topic that is subject to misinformation online is around ultra-processed foods. She explained: “This stems from the human food sector and has an impact on pet food. It’s processed in order to make sure that we can deliver complete and balanced nutrition. When we think about ultra-processed foods in the human food sector, they tend to be foods that are low in nutritional offerings – higher in sugar, salt and fat – and that’s very different to the pet food industry. So it’s about explaining its process with purpose.”
She added: “There can be some negative marketing around certain pet food formats, so it’s about explaining what the different formats are and what pet owners need to think about that, but also keeping that message really simple that a complete pet food is designed to deliver complete and balanced nutrition.”
