Pet food prices: shelf, cost and vet care for 2026

Pet food prices have risen less than the rest of the grocery cart since 2020. In August 2026 the government's price index for pet food and treats stood 25% above its January 2020 level, while food at home as a whole rose 32%. Over the same months, the price dog and cat food makers charge rose 34%. This brief sets the shelf beside what makers charge, two ingredients and the cost of vet care, from public Bureau of Labor Statistics data, for brands that sell pet food, treats or toppers.

Every chart below is built from published series. The sources, with links to the tables behind each line, are at the foot of the page.

Pet food prices against the grocery basket

The Consumer Price Index has one line for pet food and treats together. It does not split treats from food, and no public series tracks toppers on their own, so everything on this page describes the aisle as a whole.

Measured from January 2020, pet food has trailed the basket in every month since March 2020. For two years it barely moved while grocery prices climbed. Then it caught up fast, rising from early 2022 until it was almost level with the basket in May 2023. Since then it has moved sideways while the basket kept rising, and the gap has opened again. Pet food reached its highest point on the chart in July 2026, only a little above where it stood in May 2023.

By August 2026 the pet food index was up 25% on January 2020, 7.3 percentage points less than food at home's 32%. January 2020 was an ordinary month for both lines: measured from December 2019 or from the 2019 average, pet food trails groceries by a similar margin.

The index is one national figure across all the stores it samples. Does your own shelf price in grocery, mass and pet specialty look like the national line, flat since mid-2023, or did some channels keep rising while others held?

Pet food prices, year over year

Compared with the same month a year earlier, pet food and treats were lower in every month from September 2024 to June 2025 except February 2025. Since July 2025 the index has been above its year-earlier level in every month BLS published, with the biggest rise in March 2026. In August 2026 it was 1.6% higher than a year earlier, a little less than food at home's 2.2%.

BLS published no index for October 2025, so the chart has no bar for that month and the lines elsewhere on this page break there.

Our other category briefs include a USDA food price forecast. Its Economic Research Service does not forecast pet food, which the CPI counts under recreation rather than food, so this brief has no outlook, and a forecast for groceries would not stand in for one.

Rises this small leave a brand with a choice: pass a cost increase on while the aisle is edging up anyway, or hold price and fund the cost some other way. With two ingredients rising again, that choice may come soon.

What dog and cat food makers charge, and two ingredients

This chart follows two ingredients, corn and meat and bone meal, through the price dog and cat food makers charge to pet food and treats on the shelf. Neither ingredient is the whole recipe. Meat and bone meal is one rendered protein, not every protein in the bowl, and the corn line is the farm price of corn in general. Both are commodities that swing with the season and the harvest, so compare them month with the same month.

The producer price moves in steps rather than month by month. It was flat until mid-2021, stepped up in the second half of that year and again through 2022, took its largest single step in March 2023, and has crept up only in small steps since, the largest in January 2026. By August 2026 it stood 34% above January 2020, against 25% for the shelf. Makers' prices have run above the shelf line on this chart in every month since mid-2021, and the gap holds measured from December 2019 or the 2019 average too.

The ingredients swung far more. Corn and meat and bone meal both peaked in 2022, and by August 2025 each had fallen to less than half its peak. What makers charge did not come down with them. In August 2026 meat and bone meal was 16.6% above a year earlier and corn 16.1%, while makers' prices rose 1.2% and the shelf 1.6%. Both ingredient rises start from August 2025, when each was cheaper than in any August since 2020, and both remain far below their 2022 peaks. BLS marks the latest four months of all three producer prices as preliminary, so the ends of those lines may move.

If your own costs fell with these lines in 2024 and 2025, a rise now may only take back what you saved. If they never fell, it adds to costs that were already running ahead of the shelf. Which of those is true for your recipes?

Pet food against vet and other pet services

The owners who buy food and treats also pay for vet care and other pet services, and the CPI line for those services has risen in every year on the chart. It pulled ahead of pet food in 2020 and 2021. Pet food nearly caught it at the end of 2022, when pet food prices were rising fastest, and since then the gap has widened every year.

From January 2020 to August 2026, pet services including veterinary rose 48%, nearly twice the rise for pet food. In the year to August 2026 they rose 4.8%, against 1.6% for pet food and treats.

Food and care come out of the same pet budget. Public data cannot say whether owners facing bigger vet bills spend less on food or treats. Your retailer and syndicated data can: has the mix in your category shifted toward larger bags, value lines or private label as service prices pulled away?

What's next for pet brands

If you make dog or cat food, draw your own protein and grain costs onto the cost chain above. Corn and meat and bone meal are both up on the year, from a low base, while the makers' price has taken one small step in 2026. If your recipes lean on rendered protein, does your 2027 list price allow for a cost that is rising again?

Toppers need their own data. No public series separates them from food or treats, so the charts above show the aisle around them, not toppers. Only your retailer and syndicated data can show whether toppers are priced and promoted like a meal or like a treat, and whether they grew while food prices sat flat.

Treats share one CPI line with food too. If your treat prices moved faster or slower than your food, the public index cannot show it, and your own sales can.

Then look at the owner's whole bill. Vet and other services keep pulling away from food. Which of your products hold their volume when owners face a bigger vet bill, and which get swapped for something cheaper?

Scout reads the retailer portals and syndicated feeds these questions need. To see what the numbers look like for your own brand, ask below.