Two football student-athletes from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff were named to the preseason All-SWAC teams, the conference announced Monday.
Junior running back BJ Curry and redshirt junior kicker Trey Glymph were named to the preseason All-SWAC second team ahead of SWAC Media Day, which is scheduled for Wednesday in Birmingham, Ala. Glymph will be one of two players to accompany head coach
Alonzo Hampton to the event.
Curry led UAPB with 509 rushing yards and four touchdowns last season. His yardage was the 11th most in the SWAC, while his 42.4 yards per game ranked 12th. He was tied for 14th in rushing touchdowns.
The Magnolia native was also UAPB’s fifth leading receiver, catching 13 passes for 199 yards.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Glymph made all seven field goals and all 34 extra points he attempted last season, making him one of two kickers in the conference who never missed a kick in 2024. He was 3 of 3 on kicks between 20-29 yards and 4 of 4 on kicks from 30 yards or farther. His season long was 35 yards, a mark from which he scored in each of UAPB’s final two games last year.
Curry joins Prairie View A&M running back Lamagea McDowell on the second team. Jacorian Sewell of Alcorn State and Thad Franklin Jr. of Florida A&M were the first team selections.
Jackson State kicker Gerardo Baeza was the league’s first team choice ahead of Glymph.
Jackson State quarterback Jacobian Morgan was named the preseason offensive player of the year, while Southern defensive end Ckelby Givens was named the preseason defensive player of the year for the second consecutive season.
JSU led the conference with 12 selections between the first and second teams. Florida A&M followed with eight. Southern and Bethune-Cookman had five
the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.
Amid these trends, the pet food industry grew from $65.9 billion in 2012 to $123.6 billion in 2022, the study said, quoting figures from Statista. The United States’ pet food market is the largest global pet food market and contributor to the global sales total, generating $53.04 billion in revenue in 2022.
In response, the pet food industry is supplying foods that have claims that sound a lot like what we see in specialty foods for humans, he added.
Anderson teamed up with Lonnie Hobbs Jr., an assistant professor in the agricultural economics department at Kansas State University, to investigate the effects of health and wellness attributes on product pricing, and the amount owners are willing to pay for those attributes.
Hobbs and Anderson earned their doctorates at Kansas State in 2023, bouncing study ideas off each other between pickup basketball games. Anderson had data on dog food. Hobbs had delved into the market space. They saw a gap in existing literature on potential value of health and wellness attributes.
Starting with information on 1,268 dry dog food products listed at Chewy. com in January 2023, the researchers used a pricing model that allowed them to analyze prices by attributes only, so factors such as the pet food brand could be omitted to deter bias.
Anderson and Hobbs analyzed more than 60 brands of dry dog food, which they chose to study because dry food has the highest market share among all other pet food markets globally.
ALLERGIES AND DIGESTION
From the data gathered, the three most common health-related features marketed on dry dog food included “digestive health,” “skin coat health” and “immune support.” The three least common were “allergy relief,” “itch redness remedy” and “appetite stimulation.”
Products labeled “allergy relief” had the highest average price per pound — $3.89 — which Anderson said could be due to the addition of an antihistamine to support the health-attribute claim.
Foods labeled for “weight management” were next at $3.52 per pound. Food labeled for “sensitive skin” and “sensitive digestion” were both $3.19 per pound.
The authors noted that except for “weight management,” the attributes with the highest average price per pound have a relatively low number of observations — 6% or less of the products — which may warrant cautious interpretation, Anderson said, since the sample size for those products is small.
HIGHS AND LOWS
The group fetching the highest mean price per pound included the following attributes: “allergy relief,” “appetite stimulation,” “digestive health,” “heart care,” “sensitive digestion,” “sensitive skin” and “weight management.”
On the other hand, the lowest mean per pound price were for these products: “dental breath care” at $2.63 per pound, “muscle care” at $2.72 per pound and “immune support” at $2.74 per pound.
While the study doesn’t specifically show whether the premiums and discounts are related to supply or demand side factors, there are some threads the researchers can tease out from the data that provide clues.
“The sensitive digestion attribute, for example, is in 24% of the products but it also commands a 3.7% premium,” Anderson said. “When you think about demand, that’s kind of a proxy for that high quantity and price, so to me that sounds a lot like a demand-driven attribute, whereas allergy relief is only in 2% of the products, and it commands a very large 17% premium. So, it’s not definitive, but it is likely more of a supply side factor in that case.
“When you see a high quantity and high price, as opposed to a low quantity and high price, you start thinking “demand,” Anderson explained.
PET HEALTH AND BUYER BEHAVIOR
In the pet food market, health and wellness products are becoming increasingly important in shaping customer purchasing behaviors. Anderson and Hobbs pointed to recent studies in the United States and the United Kingdom showing dogs are overweight or have at least one health disorder including dental, skin or intestinal issues.
Citing the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention’s 2022 study, 59% of dogs in the United States were classified as overweight or obese. It was a 3% jump from 2018. The U.K. study took a random sample of more than 22,000 dogs from 784 veterinary clinics and found that nearly 66% of dogs had at least one health disorder.
MARKETING INFO
For a marketer, Hobbs said the results could be used to see how frequently a health attribute is included, and what its price point is, to gauge the product’s demand. Manufacturers might also evaluate product development strategies that combine multiple premium-associated attributes, Hobbs said. For instance, the significant premiums associated with both “allergy relief” and “sensitive digestion” suggest potential opportunities in specialized formulations addressing multiple health concerns.
However, the price discounts associated with certain health claims like “dental care” suggest these features may be better positioned as complementary attributes rather than primary product attributes, Anderson added. CUSTOMER BENEFITS The findings may benefit pet food buyers as well, Anderson said, by offering detailed information on pricing and health attributes. For example, while “allergy relief” products command higher prices, pet food buyers can evaluate whether these specialized formulations address their pet’s specific needs. Conversely, products with “dental care” features may offer high-value opportunities despite being only marketed as such.
Using filters available with online shopping platforms, Hobbs said pet food buyers can make faster comparisons between products by identifying which product attributes they want at the price point desired and read customer reviews.
To learn more about the Division of Agriculture research, visit uaex.uada.edu.