Most of us are probably familiar with industrial cat food.
We are even sure that many of us feed them to our pets.
Have you ever thought about the requirements and standards for cat food? Who and how regulates the safety and composition of cat food? And not only for cats but for dogs as well.
And can we mix something in there ourselves and sell it as pet food?
Today we’re going to look at where the “legs” in terms of standards, guidelines, and requirements for cat food come from.
Table of Content:
You may have seen the acronyms AAFCO or FEDIAF on your cat’s food label.
It may say something like: “…to meet the nutritional levels established by the AAFCO Cat Food Nutrient Profiles.“
Similar text will tell you that your food meets some standard or nutrient profile. We’ll come back to those a little later.
For now, let’s talk about where this text on the package comes from.
Right off the bat, you can’t just take ingredients, mix them up, and get some semblance of food.
It doesn’t work that way. Your food should contain a minimum and/or maximum level or amount of specific nutrients — for example, proteins, minerals, vitamins, and more.
Actually, what these organizations do is that they have developed some nutrient profiles for dog and cat foods based on their research. These nutrient profiles contain exactly the acceptable levels of nutrients.
Compliance with these nutrient profiles is indicated on the packaging and is often mandatory.
Historically, there have been several global organizations that have been recognized as authoritative.
Let’s talk more about each organization to understand what the differences and nuances are between them.
AAFCO stands for “The Association of American Feed Control Officials”. It is a non-profit organization consisting of government inspectors, veterinarians, and scientists from the United States and Canada.
AAFCO consists of officials responsible for regulating the sale and distribution of animal feed and drugs.
This association also establishes standard ingredient definitions and nutritional requirements for pet food.
AAFCO has been in existence since 1991 (for dogs) and 1992 (for cats). It publishes annual pet nutrition recommendations when new research results are available.
In order to be labeled “complete and balanced” in the U.S., food must meet AAFCO requirements.
In addition to nutritional guidelines, AAFCO contains “AAFCO Guidelines for Pet Food Labels.” They include:
Cat food labels often have a section on nutrition. It may contain a list of ingredients, calories, feeding recommendations, and a “guaranteed analysis” chart.
A guaranteed analysis should show the amount of each individual nutrient contained in the feed.
An “AAFCO Nutritional Adequacy Statement” may also often be added, indicating whether the product has been tested for long-term feeding in accordance with AAFCO recommendations.
We’ll look at what they mean a little later in this guide.
AAFCO is the guideline used for most commercial formulations in the United States. They are based on NRC requirements and are adapted to commercial diets, such as considering ingredients with lower bioavailability, extrusion, and commercial forms of additives. Not recommended for use in raw diets.
According to AAFCO, a balanced pet diet comprises three basic components: proteins, fats, and certain vitamins and minerals.
The amount needed depends on your pet’s breed, age, and stage of life.
For example, puppies and kittens need more protein, fat, calcium, and phosphorus for growth and development than adults.
Too little of these nutrients can cause deficiencies and too much can cause health problems.
To ensure that pets are fed properly, AAFCO has developed nutrient profiles.
These list the necessary nutrients for each type of pet and the minimum (and sometimes maximum) amounts needed for a balanced diet.
For both dogs and cats, there are two main nutrient profiles:
When shopping for pet food, choosing an option that matches your dog’s or cat’s nutrient profile is essential. For example, kittens need food that fits their growth and recovery profile.
AAFCO publishes specific dietary nutrient requirements for cats and dogs each year. As we mentioned earlier, these are based on one of two life stages – adult maintenance or growth and reproduction.
Protein: 26% (30% for growth and reproduction profile):
Fats: 9%
Minerals:
Vitamins:
Pet food for AAFCO compliance can be validated in one of the following ways:
As a reminder, it is the feed manufacturers, not AAFCO, who perform all the tests.
Choosing the right cat or dog food is not an easy task for us.
There are many factors to consider when making your choice. However, most veterinarians would agree that whatever commercial pet food you choose, ideally it should be AAFCO approved.
Although the AAFCO recommendations are considered to be of fairly good quality, the system is not perfect either. Shortcomings of AAFCO labeling and testing include.
As we mentioned earlier, AAFCO does not actually test pet food itself.
Although some laws (we’re talking about the U.S.) require that food be truthfully labeled, having an AAFCO nutritional statement on the package does not guarantee the quality of the product.
That’s why it’s so important to always buy your cat food from trusted manufacturers.
AAFCO includes minimum required levels for all nutrients, but not always maximum levels.
This is because the maximum safe levels for all pet food ingredients are not known.
When pet food manufacturers conduct lab tests, they can check the nutrient content of the ingredients, not the final product.
These are the ingredients that can vary in nutrient content.
In short, the final product may not exactly match the tested feed.
The AAFCO feeding trials require testing the food on only 8 animals.
Such a small sample is definitely not representative of the entire large population of pets who will be eating this food tomorrow.
In addition, the test animals must eat these new foods for no more than 26 weeks (about 6.5 months). This time period is much shorter than the lifespan of most of our pets.
FEDIAF — is the European Federation of Pet Food Producers, founded in 1970.
It is an organization that publishes nutrient recommendations for pet food.
The federation brings together organizations from 26 European countries (these are not necessarily European Union countries) through 18 national or regional pet food associations.
FEDIAF represents about 650 companies producing more than 90% of pet food in Europe.
The national organizations in FEDIAF represent producers, packers, and importers of finished pet foods, including foods for dogs, cats, birds, and other pets.
As a competent partner, FEDIAF cooperates with many European authorities for the implementation of pet food legislation. The main objective is to ensure the production and distribution of safe, nutritionally balanced, and palatable pet food.
The federation works through a structure of committees, which are represented by trade associations from member countries (70% of the votes) and feed companies (30% of the votes).
Pet food, like food for humans, is strictly regulated. This can guarantee the highest standards of hygiene, safety, and food quality.
Since 1970, European legislators have adopted a series of directives and regulations that have had a direct impact on all phases of pet food production and marketing.
There are hundreds of pieces of legislation, all of which are regularly revised to adapt to scientific and technological developments.
The areas covered by FEDIAF include:
Globally, there are 3 sets of basic FEDIAF codes:
We will not go into the details of the codes in this article – their purpose can be understood from their titles.
For example, one of the appendices of the Packaging Code talks about how the data itself should be designed on the packaging (layout, fonts, contrast, etc.). See the image below.
FEDIAF (like AAFCO) publishes recommended nutrient levels for cats.
The FEDIAF standards are also based on dry matter. This means that as you add more ingredients and therefore more dry matter, the values will constantly change.
In recent years, various sources have recorded information that FEDIAF may be lobbying large feed manufacturers.
There are precedents regarding FEDIAF’s claims about the alleged benefits of carbohydrates in feed.
We can assume that it is theoretically possible since there are representatives of global corporations on the committees: Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Mars Petcare, Nestle Purina PetCare, and others. See the image below.
Murmeo’s comment. We will not now go into the truth and the proceedings. Let this be the subject of our future articles and investigations.
And so, the National Research Council (NRC) is a division of the National Academy of Sciences (USA).
The NRC has been publishing reports on the nutrient requirements of many animal species since the 1940s.
NRC publications for dogs in 1974 and for cats in 1978 formed the basis for the nutrient recommendations used by most pet food manufacturers in the 1970s and early 1980s.
However, these recommendations were often based on information extrapolated from other species and provided only one recommendation for all life stages combined.
In 2006, the NRC published updated recommendations for dogs and cats.
The recommendations already included minimum and maximum amounts or concentrations for each nutrient.
This makes it easier to make a complete and balanced diet for healthy animals.
Both AAFCO and the NRC list it:
The latest version of the 2006 NRC requirements, however, was not based on human food ingredients. They are based on “the use of nutrients in ingredients commonly manufactured and commercially available“.
“Commonly produced ingredients” can mean genetically modified ingredients (GMOs) and semi-finished meat products, including those derived from dead, sick, dying, and incapacitated animals.
The NRC does not receive direct financial support for the nutrient requirement series and is therefore dependent on sponsorship for each report.
However, there are some restrictions on the proportions of funding that can be accepted from sponsors. After all, they may be perceived as having a financial interest in the results of the report.
To protect its reputation, the NRC has clearly defined methods that all committees must follow. In doing so, they affirm that their work is based on high-quality scientific evidence and discussion.
These methods include analysis of bias and conflicts of interest among committee members, public access to information about committee composition and meetings, and protocols for external review of the draft report before release.
It should be noted that it is rather difficult to compare the respective requirements of the above organizations.
First, the order of the nutrients in the tables is different, so looking at the three documents at the same time can be confusing.
In addition, although there is a common table in all the documents in which nutrient requirements are expressed in units per 1000 kcal ME (metabolic energy), these units may be different.
For example, the NRC specifies requirements for vitamins A, D, and E in RE (retinol equivalents) in µg and mg, respectively.
Therefore, it is necessary to convert these units for comparison with the IU units used for these vitamins in AAFCO and FEDIAF.
The NRC expresses nutrient requirements in three ways:
The NRC’s recommended tolerance values are designed for practical application by composition and ingredient; therefore, they are most appropriate for use compared to the AAFCO and FEDIAF values.
To summarize, it makes sense to pay attention to the standards of all three companies.
FEDIAF makes extensive use of the NRC. AAFCO makes extensive use of the NRC. Many dietitians actively use the NRC…or FEDIAF…or AAFCO.
Each of these organizations has different nutritional guidelines, and they all disagree on what constitutes a complete and balanced diet.
There is no consensus on which guideline is the best or “right” one. It is up to us as pet owners to research and decide for ourselves which one is right for your pet.
We hope we have clarified a little bit about these acronyms AAFCO, FEDIAF, and NRC. Now we all know a little more 🐱.
And when buying food don’t forget to look at the back of the package – maybe you’ll see familiar words there.
A big “respect” from us for trying to make sense of such a difficult topic. If you liked our article, we will appreciate a link to it in social networks, on other sites, or on forums. Let’s become more educated together …
Article Reference: https://murmeo.com/en/what-international-requirements-for-pet-foods-exist/