Sustainable Pet Food and Alternative Protein: AI Visibility Market Discovery Index

Benchmark Summary

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brand leads the sustainable pet food category in valid recommendation coverage?
• How far ahead of the second-place brand is the category leader?
• Which brand recorded the largest coverage decline since the August 2026 baseline?

Open Farm leads the sector with a 71.0% valid recommendation coverage rate in October 2026, up from 65.8% in August 2026. The next closest brand, Freshpet, holds a 29.8% valid recommendation coverage rate in October 2026, up from 26.4% in August 2026, leaving a 41.2-point gap between the leader and second place.

The largest coverage increase came from Open Farm, which rose to 71.0% in October 2026 from 65.8% in August 2026, a gain of 5.2 points. The largest coverage decline was PawCo Foods, which fell to 2.3% in October 2026 from 4.9% in August 2026, a drop of 2.6 points.

No tracked brand's month-over-month shift from September to October 2026 exceeded normal variation. The one brand classified as a significant decliner across the full baseline-to-current series is PawCo Foods, which declined in each of the two months since August 2026. September 2026 showed only modest shifts across tracked brands, with V-Dog recording the month's largest move, up 2.1 points.

The benchmark began with 800 prompt-surface observations in each month and produced 393 qualified observations in October 2026 after qualification.

Current Benchmark at a Glance

Recommendation-shaped answers rose 20.6 points in two months. Qualified surface breadth counts the canonical AI and search surface families with at least one qualified observation. The six families measured are ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, and AI Mode, all of which registered qualified observations in both months. An intermediate measurement in September 2026 recorded 421 qualified observations, with a recommendation-shaped answer share of 52.7% and a valid recommendation shortlist share of 77.2%.

For the strategic interpretation of this benchmark, read CiteWorks Studio's analysis of How AI Search Is Recommending Sustainable Pet Food and Alternative Protein

Research Scope and Qualification

Questions This Section Answers

• How many of the 800 prompt-surface observations qualified for the public benchmark?
• Why is the qualified benchmark denominator smaller than the raw collection universe?

The public benchmark is narrower than the raw collection universe by design.

Brand-level percentages use the qualified observations as the public denominator, not the raw collection. Roughly half of all collected prompts never enter the public denominator. See the AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology for the full qualification process.

Current Brand Standings

Questions This Section Answers

• Which sustainable pet food brands hold the top positions in October 2026?
• How do presence, valid recommendation coverage, and top-three rate differ across the tracked brands?

This table is the primary current-month benchmark view for October 2026, sorted by valid recommendation coverage.

How to Read the Standings

• Presence rate is the share of qualified observations where the brand is mentioned in any context.
• Valid recommendation coverage is the share of qualified observations where the brand appears in a genuine recommendation or shortlist.
• Top-three rate is the share of qualified observations where the brand appears in the first three recommended positions.
• Rank-one rate is the share of qualified observations where the brand is the first or only recommendation.
• Net sentiment is the balance of positive over negative mentions, from -1.0 to +1.0.

For formulas and denominator rules, see AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions.

Recommendation Coverage Movement

Questions This Section Answers

• Which brands gained the most recommendation coverage since August 2026, and which lost ground?
• Does the month-over-month movement indicate a meaningful trend or just normal variation?

Largest Increase: Open Farm

Open Farm recorded the largest coverage increase in the category, rising to 71.0% in October 2026 from 65.8% in August 2026, a gain of 5.2 points. The brand has increased in each of the two months since August 2026, reaching 66.8% in September 2026 before climbing further in October. Its top-three rate also rose to 36.6% in October 2026 from 29.8% in August 2026, a 6.8-point gain in top-three placement.

Largest Decline: PawCo Foods

PawCo Foods recorded the largest coverage decline in the category, falling to 2.3% in October 2026 from 4.9% in August 2026, a drop of 2.6 points. The brand declined in each of the two months since August 2026, reaching 4.3% in September 2026 before dropping further in October. Its top-three rate fell to 0.0% in October 2026 from 2.4% in August 2026, and its rank-one rate fell to 0.0% in October 2026 from 0.2% in August 2026. Its raw mention presence rate dropped to 2.3% in October 2026 from 5.4% in August 2026, a 3.1-point drop in raw mention presence.

Category Leader: Open Farm

Open Farm remains the category leader at 71.0% valid recommendation coverage in October 2026, up 5.2 points from 65.8% in August 2026. Its presence rate rose to 77.1% in October 2026 from 75.3% in August 2026. Its rank-one rate held relatively steady at 15.3% in October 2026 from 14.9% in August 2026, while its top-three rate increased to 36.6% in October 2026 from 29.8% in August 2026. The gap between Open Farm and PawCo Foods widened by 7.8 points across the series, growing in every month.

Recommendation Placement Snapshot

Questions This Section Answers

• Why can two brands with similar coverage show different first-pick rates?
• How did top-three and rank-one rates shift for the leading brands since August 2026?

Coverage alone does not show how prominently a brand is recommended. The leading brands show different patterns between being listed early versus being the first pick.

Freshpet's top-three rate rose from 11.5% in August 2026 to 17.6% in October 2026, while its rank-one rate rose from 2.9% to 4.6% over the same period, illustrating that close coverage figures can still hide different first-position rates. V-Dog and Wild Earth both recorded top-three rates of 10.4% in October 2026, but V-Dog's rank-one rate of 3.8% was higher than Wild Earth's 3.0%, showing that similar placement breadth does not guarantee similar first-pick frequency.

Buyer-Intent Distribution

Questions This Section Answers

• Which buyer-intent classes are represented in the qualified observations?
• What does the absence of Pricing & Value and Multi-Brand Comparison observations mean for how this benchmark should be read?

All qualified observations in both months fell into the Brand Recommendation class, reflecting shoppers seeking direct brand recommendations.

The current public series measures only the Brand Recommendation class of discovery. It does not yet contain qualified observations in the Pricing & Value or Multi-Brand Comparison classes.

Historical Measurement Record

This is an evergreen benchmark URL. New measurements are added to the same report.

Evidence and Source Layer

Questions This Section Answers

• What evidence does each prompt-level observation retain?
• Does a brand's source presence prove that the source caused the recommendation?

The benchmark is built from prompt-level observations that retain the query, AI/search surface, answer, brand outcome, recommendation placement, sentiment, and, where exposed, citations or attributable evidence sources. Source presence is evidence about the information environment. It is not proof that the source caused the recommendation.

Scope Boundaries

This public benchmark does not measure:

• Market share or sales attribution
• Every possible AI response across all models and configurations
• Organic-search ranking performance
• Social media mention volume
• Private or sponsored channels
• Causality from a metric movement alone

Top 10 Cited Domains

Questions This Section Answers

• Which domains are cited most often across AI platform responses in October 2026?
• Are AI citations concentrated in a few sources or broadly distributed?
• Which brand-owned domains appear among the most-cited sources?

Across all AI platform responses in October 2026, the benchmark observed 6,942 total citations drawn from 1,538 unique domains.

AI citations are broadly distributed rather than concentrated in a handful of sources: the top 10 domains account for roughly 32% of all citations, leaving the remaining two-thirds spread across more than 1,500 other domains. Two tracked brands' own domains appear in the top 10, with freshpet.com at rank 7 and openfarmpet.com at rank 9, both cited across all six AI surface families. Retail and review sources also figure prominently, with chewy.com and dogfoodadvisor.com tied at rank 5, alongside the general-purpose platforms google.com and youtube.com and the news outlet forbes.com.

About This Benchmark

The LLM Authority Index AI Visibility Market Discovery Index tracks how often brands appear in AI-generated recommendations across major AI and search surfaces. Each month, the benchmark collects and qualifies thousands of prompt-surface observations, then measures brand presence, recommendation coverage, placement, and sentiment under a consistent methodology.

• AI Visibility Market Discovery Methodology
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Metric Definitions
• AI Visibility Market Discovery Research Standards
• Modeled AI Visibility Authority Value

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