CTC·CHINA at the 2026 Pet Supply Chain Conference
The 2026 Pet Supply Chain Conference was held on July 8–9 at the Qingdao Mangrove Convention and Exhibition Center. The event was jointly hosted by the Shandong Pet Industry Association, Chongyejia, and Zhucheng Foreign Trade Co., Ltd.
Sun-Hai Food Ingredient (Qingdao) Corp., a subsidiary of CTC·CHINA and a vice-chair member unit of the Shandong Pet Industry Association, was invited to attend. The company took an active part in the main forum, the inaugural Small Pet and Exotic Pet Industry Conference, and the Pet Food Ingredient Innovation Forum, working alongside partners across the industry chain to explore new paths for innovation and upgrading in the pet food sector.
At the opening of the conference, remarks were delivered by Men Jie, Deputy Secretary-General of the Qingdao Municipal People's Government; Qin Yuchang, Vice President and Secretary-General of the China Feed Industry Association, President of its Pet Food Branch, and Research Professor at the Institute of Animal Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences; and An Zhongping, President of the Shandong Pet Industry Association and Chairman of Zhongyu Pet Food.
China's domestic pet market has continued to expand in recent years, but the underlying competitive logic of the industry has fundamentally shifted. Silang of Chongyejia presented a data review of the first half of 2026, noting that the era of across-the-board growth has ended, that offline services have become the main growth driver, and that channel stratification and channel-specific product customization are now essential for brands that want to survive. Musu of Tmall Pet Food unpacked the data from the 618 shopping festival and identified three growth trends: health-oriented products, premium value for money, and younger consumers, while Mr. Hei of MewMoney set out a management approach suited to an era of low tolerance for error — "secure survival first, then pursue growth" — and cautioned companies against cash-flow risks and blind expansion. Leading brands such as Jijia Pet and Weiba Life also shared how they build hit products, explaining how they put differentiated product innovation, shortened R&D cycles, and rigorous palatability testing into practice.
Several roundtable sessions were devoted to in-depth discussions on core topics such as industry involution and supply chain upgrading. Drawing on market monitoring data, the panelists reached a consensus: consumers' purchasing priorities have now fully shifted toward product quality, science-based nutrition, and food safety, and the industry has decisively moved beyond extensive scale-driven expansion into a new stage of refined operations. Robust supply chain capabilities, sustained R&D and innovation, and mature professional brand value are the core competencies that enable companies to break free from the race to the bottom on price and achieve steady development. The panelists jointly predicted that future supply chain competition will no longer be a simple contest of production capacity: flexible customized manufacturing, rapid market response, end-to-end quality control and traceability, and industry-academia-research collaborative R&D will be what sets leading companies apart. And as public attention to food safety and the long-term feeding outcomes of pets keeps growing, a standardized, practicable, and fully traceable supply chain system will become the fundamental assurance behind a company's ability to hold its market share.
During the conference, a series of group standards were released, including Complete Pet Food — Freshly Steamed Dry Food, Complete Pet Food — Puff Kibble, and Specification for the Use of Microbial Feed Additives in Complete Dry Pet Food. Wu Yi of the Feed Industry Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs gave a dedicated briefing on the industry's trust dilemma, explaining how authoritative testing and long-term feeding trials can address pain points such as the difficulty of substantiating product claims and false advertising.
Wang Yuhan of TikTok Shop explored the blue-ocean opportunities in Southeast Asia's cross-border pet market and defined the core threshold for Chinese brands going global: a quality product is only the foundation — what truly decides who wins overseas markets is a mature, compliant, and stable global supply chain behind it.
The inaugural Small Pet and Exotic Pet Industry Conference was a core highlight of the event. Focusing on the fastest-growing segment of the pet market, it offered comprehensive discussions on market trends, precision nutrition, contract manufacturing (OEM) supply chains, exotic pet veterinary care, and brand globalization.
Data presented at the conference showed that in 2025 China's small pet and exotic pet market exceeded RMB 11 billion, with more than 17 million keepers and over 20 million online consumers, and the segment has sustained double-digit growth year after year. Audiences for birds, rodents, and reptiles continue to expand as younger pet owners keep joining, making exotic pets the second growth curve of China's pet industry.
Behind the rapid growth, however, industry weaknesses have come into sharp relief: the absence of unified standards, imprecise product nutrition, a fragmented upstream OEM supply chain, and a shortage of specialized supporting resources all constrain the sector's long-term development. The conference marked two landmark milestones for industry standardization: the official establishment of the Small Pet and Exotic Pet Industry Branch of the Shandong Pet Industry Association, and the release of the Self-Regulatory Initiative for the Healthy Development of the Small Pet and Exotic Pet Industry — together creating the first collaborative platform for the exotic pet industry at the provincial level in China.
Dong Xuhua, Product Manager at CTC·CHINA, was elected Vice Chairperson of the Branch, in recognition of the company's accumulated expertise in ingredient R&D and quality-control standardization for the pet industry. In this role, Dong will take an active part in the Branch's work on industry planning, joint standards development, and the coordination of upstream and downstream resources, helping to ensure the orderly and healthy development of the small pet and exotic pet sector.
Liangsheng of Taotian Group presented data on online consumption in the small pet and exotic pet market, showing that birds firmly hold the top position in the segment while middle-class female consumers and users in lower-tier markets continue to grow. Liu Shuang of Daidai Nongfu analyzed the operational pain points of traditional exotic pet stores selling live animals — fragmented sourcing and the inability to build a loyal customer base. He Xiaohui of BUCATSTATE shared the upgrade path for exotic pet brands moving from OEM manufacturing to going global under their own brands. Zhou Tao of the Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences gave an in-depth interpretation of the specific nutritional needs of parrots and the industry's formulation shortcomings. Zheng Jiarui of Qingdao Chuxin Animal Hospital highlighted the current scarcity of exotic pet specialists and the shortage of diagnostic and treatment resources.
The conference also saw the release of Formula Feed for Parrots, China's first group standard of its kind, which fills the gap in nutrition, production, and testing specifications for parrot-specific feed and lays the foundation for the standardized development of the exotic pet segment. As one of the core drafting organizations of the standard, CTC·CHINA took part throughout the entire process — from project initiation and the calculation of nutritional parameters to feeding-trial validation and the drafting of provisions — drawing on years of practical experience in ingredient R&D and end-to-end quality control to help establish unified, science-based, and practicable production specifications for the industry.
The conference featured a one-on-one themed interview, “Small Pet Food OEM: How to Safeguard Supply Chain Security?”, in which Wu Wenjie, R&D Manager at CTC·CHINA, shared the company's hands-on management and control system. He pointed out that a high-quality supply chain cannot rely on hardware and equipment alone; it requires five integrated systems: standardized supplier admission management, whole-process inspection and testing of raw materials and finished products, standardized production SOPs, flexible production capability adapted to multiple SKUs, and a product traceability system covering the entire production cycle. He also reminded brand owners that when selecting an OEM partner, comparing quotes is not enough — long-term, consistent quality-control strength and reliable supply continuity are the true foundation of a brand's long-term development.
Held in parallel, the Pet Food Ingredient Innovation Forum extended the perspective to the very top of the industry chain, squarely addressing industry pain points such as ingredient homogenization, weak efficacy validation, and the lack of quality control and traceability.
At the opening ceremony of the forum, Ms. Zhang Hong, Secretary of the Party Branch and Vice President of the Shandong Pet Industry Association, and General Manager of CTC·CHINA, delivered the opening address. Ms. Zhang pointed out that ingredients are the foundation of the pet industry's high-quality development, and that the industry currently faces pain points such as ingredient homogenization, a race to the bottom on price, and weak traceability management. She called on upstream and downstream companies to abandon cut-throat price competition, focus deeply on the R&D of natural functional ingredients, and jointly build a standardized, traceable ingredient supply system across the entire chain — leveraging Shandong's complete industrial cluster advantages to pursue collaborative innovation and jointly drive the standardized upgrading of the upstream ingredient segment.
Industry experts took the stage in turn, including Xiong Wei of Zhongyuan Food Laboratory, Zhang Hongling of Qingdao Genyuan, Li Yanhong of Weiliao, Meng Weiguang of Zhengheng Holdings, Liu Tingting of Alltech, and Li Peng of Qingdao Agricultural University. Their in-depth discussions covered frontier areas such as probiotic and postbiotic applications, industrial-scale strain production processes, infant-formula-grade lactose-free dairy ingredients, whole-chain quality control of Shandong chicken powder, organic trace minerals, and insect-based and enzymatically hydrolyzed innovative ingredients — offering a comprehensive interpretation of ingredient innovation trends from laboratory research all the way to industrial-scale production.
As pet owners' demand for proactive health care surges, functional ingredients have become the mainstream direction of industry innovation. The forum made clear that postbiotics and compound probiotics, with their heat resistance and stability in storage and transport, hold broad application prospects in digestive health, immune support, and coat care. New ingredients such as lactose-free dairy ingredients, organic chelated trace minerals, enzymatically hydrolyzed small-molecule proteins, algal oil, and insect protein provide entirely new solutions for pet food precisely customized by life stage and breed.
At the same time, whole-chain ingredient safety control has become an industry-wide consensus. From sourcing at the origin, advanced processing, and multi-dimensional testing and evaluation, to temperature-controlled warehousing and full logistics traceability, a closed-loop quality management system is the fundamental basis for ensuring product safety and rebuilding consumer trust.
The industry's development path is now clearly visible: pet food is moving comprehensively from basic satiety nutrition toward precise nutrition tailored by species and life stage, and market competition is shifting from the rat race over finished products to upstream ingredient R&D and overall supply chain capabilities. Ingredient innovation is the core engine driving the industry's differentiated upgrading. CTC·CHINA continues to deepen its focus on ingredient R&D for specialized precise nutrition, leveraging upstream ingredient innovation and integrated supply chain strength to help the industry achieve differentiated, high-quality development.
Viewed as a whole, the conference's three core themes — supply chain upgrading, exotic pet standardization, and upstream ingredient innovation — point to the industry's overarching direction: China's pet industry is entering a new stage of professionalization, standardization, technology-driven development, and internationalization.
CTC·CHINA has long specialized in plant-derived pet food ingredients, always taking scientific innovation as its core and quality and safety as its bottom line. The company has built a stable end-to-end supply chain system, continuously iterating its pre-gelatinized ingredients and vegetable rice product lines, focusing on natural herbal functional ingredients, and strengthening its flexible customization and small-order, quick-response supply capabilities to serve brand needs across the cat, dog, and exotic pet segments. Its participation in the conference fully demonstrated CTC·CHINA's comprehensive professional strengths in ingredient R&D, end-to-end quality control, joint standards development, and its presence in the exotic pet niche, while also building a bridge for in-depth exchange and cooperation with industry associations, research institutes, and brand partners across the chain.
Looking ahead, CTC·CHINA will remain committed to its innovation-driven approach: increasing investment in functional ingredient research, improving its whole-process quality control and traceability system, and actively participating in the development of industry standards and industry organizations. Together with partners across the industry chain, the company will provide global customers with safe, stable, and highly adaptable pet food ingredient solutions, working hand in hand to drive the sustained, high-quality development of China's pet industry.
