Panic over food supply shortages and rising prices have spread to pet owners who are facing 20 percent hikes to feed their pets.Pet food prices have soared 10 to 20 percent since February.
Pets Central, an animal hospital which has four retail outlets, said it is under pressure to adjust the retail price following the rise in wholesale prices.
Merchandising manager Tweety Tam said a 2-kilogram package of dog food which sold at HK$145 a month ago now costs HK$170. The amount is enough to feed medium-sized dogs such as terriers for less than two months.
Tam said animal food is mostly from the United States and Europe with a small portion from Japan.
She attributes the price hikes to the rise in the cost of the ingredients along with increases in transport fees.
"We understand the overall cost has risen but some importers are using this [as an excuse] to drastically increase the wholesale price to milk more profit from consumers," Tam said.
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which also sells pet food, said it has adjusted prices over the past couple of months.
"The retail price of some products still has not been adjusted but we may have to do it soon. We are an animal welfare organization and will try to maintain the price at an affordable level for pet owners," SPCA public relations manager Rebecca Ngan Yee-ling said.
But Ngan expects some pet owners to stock up with one or two months of supply to tide over the price hikes. "We believe some pet owners will not go into hoarding supplies or panic buying like shoppers who stripped supermarket shelves in a scramble for rice a few days ago."
But some products have been out of stock since February.
