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Continue ShoppingIf you’ve ever stood in the pet food aisle staring at dozens of colorful bags of kibble, you know how overwhelming it can be. Beef flavor, salmon recipe, grain-free, weight management, premium blends—it feels like shopping for gourmet meals. But here’s the kicker: your dog isn’t the one picking the bag, you are.
A fascinating study published in the journal Animals explored exactly this—what makes pet parents like or dislike different types of dry dog food when branding and packaging are stripped away (Di Donfrancesco, Koppel, Swaney-Stueve, & Chambers IV, 2014). Spoiler alert: it’s not about smell, price, or even nutrition claims. The biggest factor is surprisingly simple: how the kibble looks.
The researchers wanted to know what truly drives pet owner acceptance of dog food. After all, owners are the ones making the purchase, but they don’t actually eat the product themselves. That means they rely on sensory cues like sight and smell, along with assumptions about what their dog will enjoy.
To figure this out, the team gathered eight different kinds of dry dog food from U.S. stores—ranging from low-cost supermarket brands to premium grain-free recipes. They removed all branding and packaging, poured them into plain bowls, and asked 100 pet owners to rate them.
Participants scored the kibble on things like:
How much they liked the appearance (color, size, shape, uniformity)
How much they liked the aroma
How much they thought their dog would like it
Whether they would buy it, and how expensive they thought it was
This setup stripped away marketing and forced people to focus on what they could see and smell.
So what did they find? The clear winner was appearance—especially color.
The sample with multi-colored and differently shaped kibbles scored the highest. Pet parents thought it looked more appealing, fresher, and even healthier, simply because it offered variety. Some even assumed that the different shapes and colors meant it had a mix of flavors or ingredients, which made it seem like a more balanced or exciting option.
On the flip side, the least liked samples were the darkest brown kibbles. Many participants said they looked unappetizing, oily, or just “too processed.”
Uniformity also mattered. One product with mismatched kibble sizes and odd shapes (including one that looked like a chunk of meat) scored poorly. People found the lack of consistency off-putting, even though their dogs probably wouldn’t care.
In short: pet parents eat with their eyes first.
Interestingly, aroma was not a strong driver of overall liking. While aroma did play a role—strong fishy or oxidized (rancid oil) smells turned people off—it wasn’t nearly as influential as color and shape.
Two samples had mild, pleasant aromas with grainy or toasty notes, and these tended to score slightly better. But overall, owners seemed more tolerant of smells as long as the kibble looked good. After all, most people already expect dog food to have a certain “dog food smell.”
Here’s where things get even more interesting. The same kibble that looked most appealing (multi-colored and multi-shaped) was also rated by owners as the most expensive—even though in reality, it wasn’t the priciest on the market.
This shows that people often equate appearance with quality and price. A bag that looks like it contains “fancier” kibble is assumed to be premium, even if the ingredients don’t back that up. On the other hand, a plain, uniform brown kibble was judged to be cheaper and lower quality, even when that wasn’t true.
This “pretty = pricey” bias lines up with other consumer studies in food and wine, where people tend to rate products higher if they think they cost more.
The researchers also checked if age, income, education, or gender influenced people’s preferences. Surprisingly, they didn’t. Pet parents across all groups—young or old, male or female, wealthy or budget-conscious—reacted similarly. The visual appeal of the kibble mattered across the board.
Of course, the big question is: how do owners know if their dogs will actually like it? The study asked pet parents to predict their dog’s enjoyment. Unsurprisingly, their predictions were closely tied to their own impressions. If a food looked good to them, they assumed their dog would love it too.
This is a big deal because it shows how much our own human perceptions shape what we feed our pets—even though dogs might not care about color or uniformity at all.
This research highlights the enormous role of human psychology in pet food marketing. Brands spend millions designing packaging, but even when you strip away the labels, how the kibble looks inside the bag matters a lot.
Variety sells. Owners associate multi-colored, multi-shaped kibble with quality and nutrition.
Dark colors hurt appeal. Too-dark or oily-looking kibble turns people off.
Uniformity is key. Consistent size and shape reassures buyers of quality control.
Smell matters less. Unless it’s overwhelmingly fishy or rancid, aroma won’t make or break the decision.
For manufacturers, this means paying attention not only to ingredients and packaging, but also to the kibble’s visual design.
For dog owners, this study is a reminder to pause and think: Am I choosing this food because of what my dog needs, or because of what looks good to me?
Dogs don’t care if their kibble is shaped like a steak or colored like vegetables. What really matters for their health is the nutritional profile—protein quality, balance of vitamins and minerals, and whether it’s suited to their age, size, and lifestyle.
So while it’s natural to be drawn to the colorful bag with fun-shaped kibble, remember to flip it over and read the ingredients list too.
This study sheds light on just how much human bias creeps into pet food choices. Appearance—especially color—trumps aroma, price perceptions are often misleading, and our assumptions about what our dogs will like are heavily influenced by our own senses.
At the end of the day, though, our pups don’t shop the aisles. They just want food that tastes good and keeps them healthy. Maybe the best takeaway is this: let the science of nutrition guide your choice, not just the prettiness of the kibble.
Reference:
Di Donfrancesco, B., Koppel, K., Swaney-Stueve, M., & Chambers, E. IV. (2014). Consumer Acceptance of Dry Dog Food Variations. Animals, 4(2), 313–330.