Fawad Farrukh | VP of Feline Nutrition, Mars Pet Nutrition
July is National Pet Hydration Awareness Month, but inside Mars Pet Nutrition it reads as a multi-year strategic bet, not a seasonal campaign. Fawad Farrukh, who runs the North America feline portfolio, explains why the world's largest pet food company thinks moisture-rich feeding is the category's next structural shift. The tell: dog and cat toppers are up 129% and 138% since 2018, and Mars is building products to ride that behavior rather than fight it.
July is National Pet Hydration Awareness Month, but inside Mars Pet Nutrition, hydration isn't being treated as a seasonal awareness campaign. It's becoming a long-term strategic priority. As more pet parents focus on proactive health and personalized nutrition, the world's largest pet food company believes moisture-rich feeding could become one of the biggest shifts the category has seen in years. From wet food and broths to gravies and toppers, hydration is increasingly moving from an afterthought to a core part of everyday nutrition.
To better understand where the industry is headed, we sat down with Fawad Farrukh, Vice President of North America's Feline Nutrition Portfolio at Mars Pet Nutrition. He explains why Mars believes hydration is emerging as one of the most important functional benefits in pet nutrition, what decades of research are revealing about dietary moisture, and why the future isn't kibble versus wet food but helping pet parents build more personalized feeding routines.
Mars research ranks hydration as one of the top emerging priorities in pet nutrition, ahead of digestive care, healthy development, and weight management. What finally made hydration impossible to ignore as a strategic priority?
Today's pet parents are increasingly focused on proactive wellness. Three-quarters actively seek products that support their pet's health and wellbeing, and our insights from pet parents suggest that ensuring proper hydration remains a constant challenge for many of them.
At the same time, research from the Waltham Petcare Science Institute — Mars Petcare's science center, whose work has helped establish global standards for pet nutrition, growth, and wellbeing — continues to deepen our understanding of how dietary moisture supports overall wellness, particularly urinary health.
We're also seeing broader consumer trends reinforce this shift. Human hydration products have become one of the fastest-growing segments in health and wellness, and pet parents increasingly apply those same proactive wellness behaviors to their pets. What's changing is that hydration is no longer viewed simply as access to water; it's increasingly being understood as an important component of a pet's overall nutritional strategy.
Other Interviews
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Alexandru Bacita | Co-Founder & COO, The Cat Health Company
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Elias Weiss Friedman | Founder, The Dogist Company
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Sarah McLean | Co-Founder & CEO, Big Damn Dog Co.
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