Pet Food Labels — Part 1 of 3
Buying pet food can be a challenge. We’re taught how to read the labels on human foods, but pet food labels look totally different (although this may change per the latest AAFCO meeting). How do you know what to look for? How do you know what you’re getting? How can you tell what’s best for your pet?
Hopefully this article can help answer some of those questions.
Who decides what goes on a label?
Pet food has two groups working together to monitor it — the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO).
Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act), the FDA has to ensure both human and animal food is “safe, properly manufactured, and properly labeled”. With labels in particular, the FDA focuses on “proper identification of product, net quantity statement, manufacturer’s name and address, and proper listing of ingredients.” From there, states may also have their own labeling requirements.
AAFCO does not have any regulatory authority, but they created a set of regulations in conjunction with the FDA, the states, and other interested parties. These regulations cover such items as, “the product name, the guaranteed analysis, the nutritional adequacy statement, feeding directions, and calorie statements.”
What goes on a label?
1. Product name and brand name
2. The species the food is for — must say cat or dog — can’t just be a picture — and has to be displayed on the primary part of the label
3. Quantity — how much food is in the container — must be in both English and metric units
4. Guaranteed Analysis — the amount of certain nutrients
5. Ingredient statement — in descending order by weight (so the ingredient that is heaviest comes first)
6. Nutritional Adequacy Statement — what type of pet and what stage of life the food is for (i.e. “Complete and balanced for all life stages” means kittens through older pets can eat the food and you don’t have to add anything)
7. Feeding directions
8. Name and address of the manufacturer or distributor
Interesting Name Games
Believe it or not, the name of the pet food gives you information about how much of a certain ingredient is in the food. This is based on rules to prevent companies from claiming a food is 100% beef, for example, when it’s actually a mix of beef and chicken, or beef and by-products.
100% rule: If the name is “All-Beef Jerky Treats”, the food is required to be all beef, but can include water for processing, a decharacterizing agent (something added so you know it isn’t human food), and preservatives.
95% rule: A name like “Kitty’s Chicken Cat Food” would indicate that the majority of the product will be made of chicken that totals at least 70% of the total weight, and 95% of the product by weight, excluding any added water. The other 5% could be added vitamins and minerals, or whatever is needed to make the food balanced and complete.
25% Rule: “Bob’s Beef Dinner”, “Chicken Entrée for Dogs”, and “Lamb and Rice Platter for Kitties” would fall under the 25% rule — the named ingredients have to be at least 10% of the total weight, and 25% of the product by weight, excluding any added water. Descriptors like “dinner”, “entrée”, and “platter” are the key words here — those are how you know this is the 25% rule.
“With” Rule: If a food name is something like “Beef Dog Food with Chicken”, the word that comes after the word “with” must make up at least 3% of the food. In the above example, the food would have at least 3% chicken.
Flavor Rule: A food can have an ingredient that is only there to provide some flavor. The only thing is you have to have the name of the ingredient and the word flavor written in the same font and size. So if you’ve got “chicken flavored cat food”, both “chicken” and “flavored” have to look the same, and you have to have something like chicken fat on the label as an ingredient.
There’s a lot of information to digest here (hah!), so this will be the first in a set of two articles about reading pet food labels. The next article will look more closely at ingredient names, while the last article will address feeding instructions and descriptive terms.
