American Pet Products Manufacturers Assoc.

Source: Manufacturing Digital

Date :01/06/2007 18:07:29

With such a large and diverse membership the APPMA must move in a number of directions to keep them all together.

Written and produced by James Buchanan and Michael Magno

“Prior planning prevents poor performance” could be a mantra for Bob Vetere, president of the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association, based in Greenwich, Conn.

The association was born in 1958 when a handful of pet product manufacturers met and formed the organization as an advocacy group to represent their concerns. Their vision would prove prescient, as the former cottage industry has developed into a multi-faceted industry with $38.5 billion spent on pet products in 2006. Sustaining this growth and looking out for possible obstacles downstream is the mainstay of this growing member-driven organization.

Member Service The APPMA has placed itself at the center of this growth by acting as an advocate for its members and facilitator between not only its broad array of manufacturers, but the retail and distributors they rely upon. As a result of this strategy over the past five years the APPMA has nearly doubled the size of its member base to approximately 1,000 and now runs the world’s largest annual pet products tradeshow, Global Pet Expo, with nearly 2,300 booths registered in 2006.

“I keep telling my board it’s all thanks to me,” jokes Vetere, “but I imagine America’s love for their pets probably had something to do with it.” Joking aside, America’s love for its pets has allowed manufacturers to explore new and innovative products and has allowed existent manufacturers in other industries to broaden their product lines to include pets.

For example, Vetere says, companies more commonly thought of as making products for human consumption are adding pet lines as well. These include companies such as Old Navy, Harley Davidson, Paul Mitchell, Nestle, Mars, and Omaha Steaks.

The APPMA not only represents the interests of this broad array of manufacturers, but also the diverse interests of its large and small member companies. “You have to realize too that not only do we have companies like Bless the Beast and Blonde with Beagle,” says Vetere, “but we also have Nestle, Mars, Central Pet, Proctor and Gamble, which are multi-billion dollar international companies as members. It is a seriously large business that continues to grow.”

Therefore, one goal of the APPMA is to offer services for their membership as a whole while also keeping in mind that the bulk of their members are smaller manufacturers.

On the broad scale, the APPMA staffs a Government and Regulatory Affairs Department in Washington, DC, to address legislative issues and concerns. They also partner with other associations such as the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council, which handles live animal issues, and played a role in forming the Pet Industry Coalition to represent retailers, distributors and manufacturers.

The APPMA’s tradeshow is also a focal point of their role as advocate and facilitator by being a venue within which members, retailers, and distributors are able to meet and develop stronger working relationships. Lastly, the APPMA produces the most extensive pet ownership survey in the country to help its members track trends and look for new opportunities and areas of growth.

For smaller manufacturers, the APPMA also offers a number of support programs such as group insurance rates, an extensive PR program for members, import/export training, tradeshow counseling, educational seminars and conferences, and a searchable listing of national and international shippers. “We try to offer as many services as we can to help the small manufacturers be as successful as they can,” says Vetere.

Helping Protect the Future of the Industry

Vetere’s prior experience in the plastics industry, which he views as somewhat analogous to the current state of the pet manufacturing industry, provides him with a fair degree of insightfulness.

Vetere spent the first years of his career as Associate General Counsel for First Brands, which among other things manufactured Glad Bags and other plastic products. He tells the story of how during the 1960s plastics experienced extraordinary growth and became the buzz word of that era. “During that time you had to be involved with plastics and we experienced unbridled growth until we hit a wall,” says Vetere. That “wall” was environmental concerns among consumers that Vetere says was as much a problem of perception as anything else.

“Coming into the pet industry I started to see the same thing where all of a sudden through whatever good fortune you started to see this unbridled growth not attached to the economy or anything else,” says Vetere. “I didn’t want to see the same trap happen where people started saying, ‘You don’t know how to take care of pets and you don’t know how to take care of animals.’

“So over the past few years we have been working very closely with a coalition of everybody from manufacturers to retailers to distributors to veterinarians to just about anybody involved with the pet industry to make sure we have our house in order.”

The first initiatives of putting the house in order have been publishing animal care guidelines to help retailers better handle the pets they sell and promoting responsible pet ownership among consumers. Vetere and his coalition partners push this message through paid advertising and writing stories for a number of trade and related publications, outreach efforts at tradeshows, working with distributors to disseminate the message to retailers, making information available online, and offering education and certification courses to retailers.

To get the word out to consumers the coalition disseminates information sheets through retail stores at the point of purchase, public relations campaigns, and through the media. In fact, Vetere is often sought for comment whenever pet industry issues are involved. He has been quoted in or appeared on MSNBC, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and others.

Vetere attributes success in this arena to maintaining his credibility as a knowledgeable spokesperson for his members. “Whatever I am peddling at least plays well with them,” he says, “and I am not viewed as an industry shill, but as someone who has some idea how these issues fit into the big picture. Having 30 years on the manufacturer’s side and the for-profit side gives me better perspective when I try to present some of this product information and industry figures.”